A surge in demand for winter holidays has led Hays Travel to invited all of its staff back to work.
The Sunderland company had previously moved hundreds of its employees to zero hours contracts when the coronavirus outbreak devastated the worldwide tourism industry.
But now it has brought back 3,000 people to answer customer inquiries, having seen thousands of inquiries for holidays later in the year.
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In a video, company chairman Irene Hays said: “We’ve invited all of our staff to come back to our work and we’re delighted to say we’ve now got about 3,000 people back answering calls and dealing with issues for you.
“We’re also seeing quite a bit of interest for holidays later in the year.”
Husband John, the company’s founder, added: “People want something to look forward to so demand for winter holidays is really strong for 2020/21. What’s going fantastically well is our Hays Travel peace of mind guarantee where you can cancel for whatever reason you like up to six weeks beforehand and get your money back if you don’t want to go.”
Hays had moved to put 900 staff in its travel academy, foreign exchange centres and at its Sunderland head office onto zero hours contracts in March when a slump in the travel market saw it losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a day.
It also asked staff to take unpaid leave and reduce hours to cope with the slump.
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The Sunderland business employs more than 5,000 people around the country after a deal last year to buy the retail estate of failed rival Thomas Cook.
It is the country’s largest independent travel agents, with more than 180 retail shops and annual revenues of more than £1bn.
Hays’ expansion came just before the coronavirus outbreak plunged the travel industry into chaos, with holiday companies seeing their trade almost completely wiped out overnight.
That crisis is expected to continue through the peak summer season, and earlier this week Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it was “unlikely that big, lavish international holidays are going to be possible for this summer”.
Today holiday giant Tui said it was looking to cut up to 8,000 roles worldwide and called Covid-19 the “greatest crisis” the industry has faced.
The 海角视频’s biggest tour operator posted losses of €845.8m euro (£747m) in the first half of 2020, compared to €289.1m (£255m) in the same period 12 months previously.