A LITTLE more than a year ago, Thomas Cook staff were left facing the prospect of a jobless Christmas.

The travel firm's rapid demise caused chaos not just for passengers, but for hundreds of staff who lost what they thought were secure jobs in the space of a few days.

Thankfully for staff at the Braintree Thomas Cook, family-run Premier Travel came to the rescue and offered them all jobs at its new branch in George Yard Shopping Centre.

The despair of losing their livelihoods was short-lived, but little did they know what was around the corner when they opened for the first time in December last year.

"There was a sandstorm in the Canary Islands at the start of the year and I thought that was going to be our biggest problem." branch manager Kerry Gordon said.

"Nobody had even heard of coronavirus this time last year but it's been the only thing have been talking about for the past nine months.

"I've been in the travel industry for 25 years and have never experience anything quite like this.

"It's been tough for everyone and so hard to keep going."

The pandemic inevitably has had an enormous impact on the travel industry and left many airport bosses fearing for the future.

Yet despite the dire situation, the Premier Travel branch in Braintree has continued to operate throughout the year and celebrated its one-year anniversary on December 20.

Kerry has continued to work throughout lockdowns as the branch's single member of staff, with her colleagues spending the majority of 2020 on furlough.

She said: "We've made sure we have always been open or someone has been on the end of the phone for our customers.

"A lot of our old Thomas Cook regulars stayed loyal to us and came to us when we moved to Premier Travel so we wanted to be there for them.

"Everything was so confusing at the start of the pandemic and a lot of holidaymakers had so much stress trying to cancel or move flights.

"We've been quite lucky because a lot of our bookings have been moved and not cancelled. But there hasn't been many new bookings or customers throughout the year for obvious reasons."

Business inevitably began to fall away in February for Kerry and her team when coronavirus began to spread around the world.

The arrival of the pandemic in the UK and subsequent restrictions on travel meant the majority of business stopped, and has remained very low throughout the year.

But the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine has given Kerry renewed hope business will pick up in the coming months and will help to bring some normality back to all of our lives.

"I think there's definitely a bit more optimism since the vaccine came out." she added.

"People are starting to ask for more quotes and we're getting more enquiries which is a good sign.

"I think there will still be a lot of caution because we don't know when the vaccine will be given to everyone and a lot of country's abroad could still have rules in place for a long time.

"But there's been quite a bit of interest in bookings for 2022 so I'm hopeful things are starting to improve and will get better in the new year."

Reflecting on Premier Travel's first year in Braintree, Kerry said: "It's not been the year any of us had hoped for.

"It's been really hard for everyone but we've kept in touch through Zoom and hopefully we can all be back together in the office soon.

"This time last year we were just in shock when Thomas Cook collapsed and we were devastated.

"This hasn't quite been the same and thankfully the furlough scheme has meant staff haven't lost their jobs.

"We're certainly keeping our fingers crossed our second year will be a lot more promising and busy.

"Let's face it, it certainly can't be any worse than the last year."