In a company update at this year’s Freedom Travel Group conference in Lapland, Matt Harding, interim head of Freedom and the Freedom PTAs, revealed the organisation had finished the year “in a good position”.

Sales were 8% and customers up 2%, while margin was up 9% year-on-year. Membership grew by 10%.

Harding further added that Freedom’s Atol solution had seen sales increase 13%, customers 24% and that £240,000 was paid out in commission this year to members via the solution.

“There is more to do here and this will be one of our strategic projects in 2019,” said Harding.

At last year’s conference Freedom re-launched and re-branded its business as it removed any reference to the Co-operative, following the end of the joint venture between it and Thomas Cook.

Harding said: “Many of our PTAs were sad to see the name that they had been synonyms with for many years go, and were nervous about how their customers would feel – 12 months later the re-brand has been a great success for us – a real testament to the personal service that our PTAs offer and one that we are very proud of.”