Thomas Cook-MyTravel deal being overshadowed by something bigger

Just as EU regulators were rubber-stamping the Thomas Cook-MyTravel merger this afternoon, news reports sprung up all over the web about a potential deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!.

Oh, those two...

To say this would be the deal of the century would something be an understatement, affecting any company using the web.

Here's the report on the New York Post website, which broke the story under the headline "Bill's hard drive". And Mashable's analysis.

The BBC says the deal could have a value of $50 billion.

Back to the TC-MT merger. The likelihood of the Thomson-First Choice deal not being given the green light - especially after the pair agreed to offload some Irish businesses earlier today - is now very small.

As Travolution has said a number of times, deals between the Big Four were always likely to happen. What has shocked many people has been the timing.

Consolidation within the next year to 18 months - most people would have said yes. Time moves quickly.

Fuelled by the rapid rate of change in the industry and the need to get a grip on stock and route strategy, 2007 will probably be remembered as the year the "traditional" end of the industry woke up.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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