XL crash strands thousands abroad

The collapse of the UK's third largest package holiday group has left tens of thousands of Britons stranded abroad.

The decision to place XL Leisure Group into administration has also left thousands of staff facing the axe.
Chairman Phil Wyatt said he was "totally devastated" by the failure which has grounded XL's 21 planes. The company flies to about 50 destinations.
There are 67,000 stranded who booked directly with XL, and another 23,000 who booked via other companies. The Civil Aviation Authority also said the firm had 200,000 advance bookings.

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I heard about this earlier and was wondering how the people stuck abroad are going to get home.

It really sucks. It must be a holy mess. Moreover apparently only those who booked through a travel agency can expect to get some form of reimbursement, the others - God knows

Looks like the taste of things to come IMHO.
Some "superdeals" were only possibly thanks to the cutthroat competition - sometimes you just couldn't help thinking "How do they manage to make a profit??"

Paul

Normally travel companies need to be ABTA or IATA certified which means that in such a case, clients are taken care of, flights and arrangements are supplied and refunds given to those who are entitled to it.

Not just the people stranded but the employees are stuck too - not likely to get any redundancy or severance money and will struggle to find work.

Holidaymakers should be ATOL protected so no financial loss to themselves, but unpleasant nonetheless.

"He said package deals are covered by the CAA's Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (Atol) scheme and those customers will be offered repatriation flights or their money back if they have an advance booking."


Exactly

Only those that book through travel agents will be covered others of whom there are many who booked direct flights only through xl or its companies such as travel city direct are goosed. Not very nice can't help thinking of the hundreds that use tcd every sept/oct as we did to fly Glasgow to Orlando this is a very busy time normally and thousands will now be stranded or out of pocket.

It's the Curse of the Sponsors of Premiership. Teams.....Newcastle and Northern Rock.....West Ham and XL Leisure....

I wouldn't book any flights with Emirate Airlines in the near future.....

(well a man can dream can't he?)

People often complain about the cost of package holidays from Switzerland compared to similar destinations from the UK, but compare the amount of UK travel companies that have gone under in the past 30 years - basically every couple of years a biggie goes down...

The number of people losing their jobs could be in the region of 2,000. This will inevitably have a knock on effect for many other companies who supplied XL.

One crew in the USA had their plane impounded by Police immediately prior to take off. The crew also have to find their way home, as well as being out of jobs.

Whilst losing your holiday is pretty bad, and I would be p****d off if it happened to me, losing your job is another thing all together.

I was amazed to hear a chap on the radio this morning complaining that the first he heard about it was on the news an hour and a half earlier. I think he was expecting XL to phone 200,000 customers first

Rod

Blimey...there might be something in this Curse of the Sponsors of Premiership Teams....... Man Utd's boys are not doing too well of late......

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...erg&refer=home

.

I am currently writing a Media Emergency Response Plan. One of the first actions is the establishment of the call centre and website within hours of the incident, which will dramatically filter reduce to the workload in distributing news and information. The statements and websites are prepared as templates far in advance of them being required.

dave

Just make sure you're getting paid - in advance ....
(just kidding, well - maybe no...)

Paul

I don't know the legal situation when the company collapses regarding funding for emergency measures. In the case of an operational disaster, one of the first things the response team needs is cash - and plenty of it. Getting hotels and fuel and services following an incident in a far-off land requires hard currency. Finance, Legal and Insurance feature in the response planning, but getting cash and raised credit card limits for staff are an immediate priority.

dave

To be honest if I was stranded in the caribbean I am not sure that I would want to come back

OK - seriously, now.
We all remember what happened to the Swissair crews stranded all over the world. Did they get emergency funding or did they have to pay out-of-pocket?

If a company goes under - who provides the emergency cash to repatriate the crews? The gov't?
Just thinking about a friend of mine who works for Alitalia.... :-/

Paul

I heard more on the radio today about the crew that were stranded in Orlando at the weekend. Their plane was impounded immediately prior to take off. They had to sort out their own flights home. Many of the staff assisted in sorting flights even though they had just lost their jobs. For some this meant borrowing from friends and family to pay for their flight home.

Rod

As I said in the first sentence of my previous posting: I don't know who pays for this in the event of the company going under.

As Airlines operate an ongoing schedule, it stands to reason if the money is running-out at some point it will stop operating and a number of people will be displaced.

The duty of care of a company to its employees should prevent them leaving them stranded on the other side of the world. In reality I expect in the first instance, that they either organise their own travel for refund or another Airline will repatriate them through goodwill.

Lets be honest though, Swissair had their head stuck in the sand for a long time. At least with Alitalia, the crisis is externally evident and you know what is coming...if I was a pilot there I would fear the worst. the best that can happen is major job losses imminent...

dave

AIG (Man U sponsor) is next, apparently...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7618430.stm