Thomas Cook former CEO Harriet Green and successor Peter Fankhauser received millions in 2015

Ex-Thomas Cook boss Harriet Green and current chief executive Peter Fankhauser received millions in 2015 as compensation. Green worked for only two months during the financial year and the two were criticised for their alleged failure to efficiently handle the outcomes of the 2006 incident, in which two children died while on the tour operator's holiday, leading to alleged reputational damage to Thomas Cook.

According to the company's annual report for the 12 months ending September 2015, Green received a total of £6.3m (€8.2m, $9m), of which £248,000 was for playing the role of CEO between the start of October and her departure in November 2014. She received another £451,282 in salary and pension from the company while on gardening leave and shares worth £5.6m under a bonus plan.

Fankhauser received a total of £4.3m in 2015 of which £585,000 was in salary, £30,000 in benefits, a £605,000 bonus, £175,000 in pension contributions and £2.9m worth of shares as part of a three-year performance plan.

Under Green's leadership, the company was criticised for allegedly mistreating the parents of Bobby and Christi Shepherd, the two children, who had died because of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty hotel boiler while on holiday with Thomas Cook on Corfu in 2006. Though this had occurred six years before Green was appointed as the company's chief executive, she later donated a third of her £5.6m share award to charities chosen by the parents of the deceased.

Later in 2015, the controversy escalated and embroiled Fankhauser, who had taken over the reins as the chief executive from Green. In May 2015, a British inquest into the 2006 incident revealed that Thomas Cook had breached its duty of care. While this created a public outrage, Fankhauser initially refused to apologise for his company's conduct. However, as calls for a boycott of Thomas Cook grew, Fankhauser eventually apologised and gave the company's backing to a carbon monoxide charity, describing it as a "financial gesture of goodwill" to the parents, according to The Telegraph.