Cook issued its second gender pay report on Wednesday (April 3) after it last year became compulsory for all companies with more than 250 employees to report their gender pay figures annually at the end of the financial year.

The operator employs the equivalent of about 9,000 full-time workers, split 72% female to 28% male, across its UK business, spanning retail, aviation, in-destination management and office-based support functions.

However, senior management roles are skewed 62% male to 38% female, a gap which widened by 1% last year. Cook’s board, meanwhile, remains 36% female - the same as last year.

Like many firms, Cook’s workforce is unevenly distributed, with lower-paid retail roles held predominantly by female employees (93%) while 95% of Thomas Cook pilots – one of the company’s most highly-paid roles – are male.

Across Thomas Cook UK, comprising the operator’s IT, finance, HR, legal, contact centre and sport roles, Cook has reduced its average gender pay gap 2.9% to 21.4%.

The proportion of women in the division’s upper and upper-middle pay quartiles, meanwhile, has increased from 46.3% to 47.2% and 56.7% to 57.5% respectively.

Cook has also reduced the average gender pay gap across its airline from 57.7% to 52.2% while increasing the proportion of women in the airline’s two higher pay quartiles, up 5% (upper) and 2% (upper-middle).

“This report shows we have made some progress,” said Cook chief executive Peter Fankhauser. “However, we still have some way to go, and I am determined to continue to champion initiatives that will give us better balance across the organisation.”

These initiatives include gender diversity targets for Cook’s executive committee, as well as the Sponsoring Women to Success programme and Airline Senior Female Leadership forum.

“Our gender pay gap will not be solved overnight,” added Cook’s group HR director Julie Armstrong. “We’ve put in place a variety of initiatives to foster inclusion and diversity across the organisation [and] we have started to see some improvements in the gender pay gaps but continue to look at ways to drive further change that will build a better business.”