Repatriation is a word you don't hear too often. It's when someone is returned or brought back to his or her home country after being abroad. And the government of the United Kingdom has launched the largest peace time repatriation in British history. The reason — a British travel company suddenly went out of business Sunday night. And at that time it had about 600,000 customers on vacation, including 150,000 people from Britain who were stranded in other nations. The travel company is Thomas Cook. It was named for an English businessman credited with inventing modern tourism in the mid-1800s. Until this weekend, the company that bore his name was one of the largest travel businesses on the planet.
It said it had tens of millions of customers. But it was in financial trouble. An analyst said there were a list of reasons why. Thomas Cook had run out of cash. It was racking up a lot of debt. It had more online competitors whose costs were cheaper than a company with more than 500 retail stores. Some experts say it wasn't managed well. Some say it had been slow to change with the changing market and some believe that uncertainty over Brexit, the British exit from the European Union, had made some Britains less willing to spend as much on travel.
Thomas Cook was trying to make a rescue deal with banks and its largest investor. But when that deal fell through over the weekend, the 178 year old company was finished. It's CEO apologized to customers, employees and partners, calling this a deeply sad day. And the British government launched Operation Matterhorn, the repatriation effort to bring home travelers who’d booked their vacations through Thomas Cook and became stuck when the company collapsed.
重点讲解：
1. go out of business 停业；破产；
Thousands of firms could go out of business.
成千上万个企业可能破产。
2. run out of 用完；耗尽；
Local authorities will run out of money part way through the financial year.
地方政府等不到财年结束钱就会花得一干二净。
3. rack up （商业上）大量获得（利润），遭受(严重损失)，热销；（体育中）获胜，得（分）；
Lower rates mean that firms are more likely to rack up profits in the coming months.
更低的费率意味着各公司更有可能在未来的几个月中大幅获利。
4. fall through (安排)没有落实;(计划)未能实现；(交易)没有达成；
They wanted to turn the estate into a private golf course and offered ￡20 million, but the deal fell through.
他们出价两千万英镑，想把这块地变成高尔夫球场，但交易泡汤了。
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