Kiss Flights Passengers to be Refunded After Company Collapsed
This week the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) assured the 60,000 passengers who had booked cheap flights with collapsed travel operator Kiss Flights that the "vast majority" of fares would be refunded.
The company became the latest victim of the recession in the travel industry on Tuesday night. Its parent company Flight Options ceased trading due to cashflow problems.
Some 13,000 UK passengers are currently overseas with return flights booked via the company, but the CAA insisted that they would be able to return home as normal. Anyone with cheap flights booked with the firm before 6pm Wednesday would also be able to travel, it added.
The CAA went on to say that most other customers will be eligible for a full refund, although this does not help them when it comes to the last minute dash to find alternative cheap fares online. Kiss Flights specialised in cheap flights to Turkey, Egypt, Greece and the Canary Islands.
In a statement, Flight Options said that the company’s collapse was down to "very difficult and challenging conditions in the UK travel market resulting in poor yields and poor demand", which led to "over capacity in the marketplace". A lack of bookings for September and October had caused "severe cashflow issues", it added.
Flight Options chief executive Gary Ash complained that recent developments made it impossible to keep running the companies. He said: "The effect of the volcanic ash was devastating. When the banks were in trouble the government bailed them out, but when the tour operators had to cope with the enforced closure of the skies and the expensive cost of repatriation the government did not help."
Fellow travel operators Goldtrail and Sun4U have already collapsed this summer, with the latter firm folding only last week, leaving some 1,500 holidaymakers stranded in Spain.
General Travel News posted by Dan Brown on 20 August 2010
cheap fares, flights, cheap flights, cheap flights to Turkey
False
False
