Travelers walk past a Thomas Cook advert at Gatwick airport – Credits: Bloomberg/Chris Ratcliffe

Had talks to rescue defunct holiday operator Thomas Cook succeeded last night, the focus of the legal industry today would have been on the likes of the Magic Circle and elite U.S. firms involved.

Instead, the company's collapse has thrust Reed Smith into the spotlight with its now-crucial role of advising the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in its efforts to repatriate more than 150,000 British tourists left stranded abroad.

The government expects Operation Matterhorn to take two weeks and to cost about £100 million. It is the U.K.'s largest peacetime repatriation effort.

Reed Smith is working alongside the CAA's in-house team on issues surrounding the company's insolvency, including: providing advice on licensing and regulatory issues, financing aspects of the group's restructuring, insolvency law and contingency planning for the repatriation of the travellers.

According to lawyers who have worked on repatriation efforts in the past, the task facing Reed Smith and the CAA is considerable, given the number of people involved.

One partner with previous experience of such deals said: "The priority for the CAA, their in-house and external lawyers is to bring people home and find who is going to pay for that. They need to work out how to deal with that, and it is particularly difficult with third parties in other countries who won't want to do anything until they are paid.

"It is a huge logistical exercise, which raises serious questions for the travel industry generally as there are other travel companies which are also heavily indebted."

The partner added: "People who paid money should be able to recover the losses they have suffered. Credit card and insurance providers should repay people who have taken holidays.

The Reed Smith team advising the CAA includes London partners Richard Spafford, Charlotte Moller and Nicholas Williams.

The team is further supported by U.S. partners Eric Schaffer and Aaron Javian providing assistance with restructuring schemes arrangements, as well as Germany-based partner Volker Kammel providing advice on German insolvency processes and their contrast with the U.K., as the German companies of the group are still operating.

The law firm has a history of advising the CAA. Spafford and Moller advised the regulator on licensing and contingency planning in 2017, when airline Monarch's collapse required a repatriation of 110,000 people stranded overseas. On that occasion, Kirkland & Ellis's restructuring group represented the CAA in relation to financing proposals.

It has proved difficult for Thomas Cook to compete with major online travel agents as its profits dipped earlier this year. During the summer, the company agreed to accept a £750 million rescue offer from one of its shareholders, Fosun Tourism Group, in an effort to keep trading into the winter period.

The deal would have given Fosun Tourism, a branch of Chinese investment giant Fosun International, a majority stake in the company.

The company has conducted rescue talks ever since only to see them fail last night, forcing it to go into insolvency and cancel all its flights today (September 23).

A slew of firms are advising on the company's restructuring following its collapse, including Slaughter and May, Latham & Watkins and Ashurst.