“APD has now risen to a point where UK holidaymakers are subjected to the highest air taxes in the world,” he said. “Not only is it making us uncompetitive but it places an unfair burden on customers. Scotland is already considering abolishing APD; England needs to get in line,” he added.

The group chief executive also criticised the European Union for failing to react more constructively to the UK voting last month to leave the EU.

“What is depressing in the context of Britain’s vote to exit the European Union is the absence of any desire in Brussels to change. I get no sense that the bureaucrats are reflecting on the vote with a view to making a Europe that the majority of people want to be part of,” he claimed.

“Instead of taking a hard look at the situation and considering a way to make it better, they seem only to want to defend what they have. That’s the real pity,” he said.

He advised travel businesses in the UK to “do all that you can to make the environment for British companies more favourable” in the wake of Brexit.

Thomas Cook this week celebrated 175 years since it ran its first tour from Leicester to Loughborough, with a party in London attended by key trade partners.

He admitted that Thomas Cook is currently operating in “one of the most challenging environments I have seen in my nearly 30 years in travel”, but insisted the business is now stronger financially and operationally than it had been for some time.

“We have learned the hard way what happens when we don’t act with our customers at our heart. This is probably the most important legacy Thomas Cook, the man, left us,” Fankhauser added.