Thomas Cook says could consider role in German airline consolidation in future

LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - British holiday company Thomas Cook said it was not currently planning to take part in the consolidation of the German airline market but would not rule out being involved in future.

Thomas Cook (Frankfurt: A0MR3W - news) 's bigger rival TUI (LSE: 0NLA.L - news) said in October it was in talks to merge its German airline TUIfly with the leisure travel business of loss-making Air Berlin (LSE: 0GPE.L - news) , Germany's second biggest airline. The TUI supervisory board will meet on Wednesday to approve the deal.

Thomas Cook's CEO Peter Fankhauser said on Wednesday that its German airline Condor, which swung to an operating loss of 10 million pounds ($12 million) in the company's financial year to end Sept 2016, was an integral part of its business.

"That doesn't mean that if in the future consolidation there could be a position where we say that would be good for our business for the future that we would not consider it, but so far we are where we are," he told reporters on a call. ($1 = 0.8079 pounds) (Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Victoria Bryan)