XL Airways

*Kol*

XL Airways grounded as parent files for administration
(12Sep08 03:22 GMT) Nicholas Ionides
Tour operator XL Leisure Group, the parent of in-house carrier XL Airways, has gone into administration and all flights are being cancelled with immediate effect.
The company, the operations of which are primarily UK-based but which includes divisions in France and Germany that are still operating, has been in discussions on a refinancing package. It claims to be the third-largest tour operator in the UK and has several travel brands.
A statement on the XL website says administrators were appointed by the courts early this morning for XL Leisure Group, XL Airways UK, Excel Aviation, Explorer House, Aspire Holidays, Freedom Flights, Freedom Flights (Aviation), The Really Great Holiday Co, Medlife Hotels, Travel City Flights and Kosmar Villa Holidays.
The French and German divisions of the XL Group "continue to trade as normal", however.[/FONT]
"The companies entered into administration having suffered as a result of volatile fuel prices, the economic downturn, and were unable to obtain further funding," the statement says.
"The Joint Administrators cannot continue trading the business and therefore all flights operated by the companies have been immediately cancelled and the aircraft grounded. Going forward, the Joint Administrators are unlikely to be able to trade the business or operate the aircraft."
XL Airways served destinations in Europe, North America and the Mediterranean region, using Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies and widebodies. It recently opted to cut long-haul routes to the Caribbean.

Neworder79

They operated summer charters from Dublin-Reus, Skiathos; Cork - Santorini and Knock - Faro & Bourgas.

Run_to_da_hills

Ryanair could see all this happening and celebrated it by having a "closing down" sale, I.E. the closing down of other airlines. http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=sep&story=pro-en-040908

SpookyDoll

I flew home from Santorini on Tuesday with them ...cant believe it!!!

Am raging -how will we get to Santorini now?

What if RyanAir takes over the route -the Island will be ruined

localhothead

yep, i was supposed to fly on a package with them this morning to greece

hope they rot in hell

Run_to_da_hills

localhothead wrote: »

yep, i was supposed to fly on a package with them this morning to greece

hope they rot in hell

You might be flying with Ryanair instead


http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=sep&story=gen-en-120908

Tenger

localhothead wrote: »

yep, i was supposed to fly on a package with them this morning to greece

hope they rot in hell

Your travel insurance should cover this under UK law.

XL aircraft sulking in DUB beside 3 Futura Gael:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearbringer/2850034083/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearbringer/2850031843/in/photostream/

lostexpectation

some ryanair guy is killing the irish regulator for not acting against a company that was known to heading down the drain, why he asked were they allowed to continue taking bookings?

apparently other operators licence are under review, he was asked did he complete confidence in them??? and if not what will he do. nothing, 3 gone to wall already this year.

Steyr

Im taking bets, what airline is next to go??:pac:

Tenger

Steyr wrote: »

Im taking bets, what airline is next to go??:pac:

Actually Paddy Power are! Aer Arann and SkyEurope are among those with not great odds.

Bloody*Mary

Bramble wrote: »

Your travel insurance should cover this under UK law.

XL aircraft sulking in DUB beside 3 Futura Gael:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearbringer/2850034083/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearbringer/2850031843/in/photostream/

You won't need your travel insurance if you booked with a travel agent as you'll be covered by the Aviation authority bond. If you booked online with XL then it's a different story.

Ryanair are complete hyprocites. Charging an arm and a leg for sun routes coming inbound into Dublin this weekend. Was looking at them yesterday and they were a fraction of the cost.

localhothead

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

You might be flying with Ryanair instead


http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=sep&story=gen-en-120908

err, I didnt GO - hello ?

Run_to_da_hills

localhothead wrote: »

err, I didnt GO - hello ?

It serves you right, you made a big mistake by not booking with Ryanair in the first place.

Michael Cawley, Ryanair’s Deputy Chief Executive, said:"This is proof positive that passengers should not book their holidays with flaky, financially stretched airlines such as XL. Passengers should only book reservations with financially strong airlines such as Ryanair whom they know will be here for the long term"

DenMan

It is a complete shambles. Was scheduled to go to Bulgaria with them at the end of the month. Good news though as we will be going to Crete instead (so am very happy). What I can't understand is how they were still taking booking for holidays when they were in this much trouble. We all hear stories of start up airlines/travel agents going under not long after they were formed. How can the UK's third largest holiday provider go under? This is not also the result of rising fuel costs and an economic turndown (credit crunch). It has obviously been building up for a good while and as of last night, they completely collapsed. Watched the press conference with the Chairman Phil Wyatt and he was "totally devastated".

The pound sterling weak current value has not helped matters also.

Sea Devils

I flew with them a few weeks back from Belfast to Corfu. Apart from the legroom wasn't the worst of expieriences. Feel sorry for all those Irish passangers stranded though

DenMan

They had flights going out to Greece and Spain yesterday. Terrible for the poor tourists. Having to make their own way home is taking the pi$$ big time. Watched the BBC videos online about the tourists stranded in Orlando. Awful as they spent the whole day in the airport and all they were given was a blanket and a bottle of water. Shocking altogether. We are the lucky ones.

vulcan57

Bramble wrote: »

Actually Paddy Power are! Aer Arann and SkyEurope are among those with not great odds.

Unfortunately I could quite see Aer Arann being in trouble, hopefully I'm wrong though, as that would also see the end of Galway airport I fear. From the commercial side anyway.

localhothead

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It serves you right, you made a big mistake by not booking with Ryanair in the first place.

Michael Cawley, Ryanair’s Deputy Chief Executive, said:"This is proof positive that passengers should not book their holidays with flaky, financially stretched airlines such as XL. Passengers should only book reservations with financially strong airlines such as Ryanair whom they know will be here for the long term"

thanks for the sympathy

i take it you "work" for them

cabernetgirl

Sorry to hear you lost your holiday Hothead, hopefully you can claim your monies back, but im sure at this moment its no consollation. keep your chin up...

As for you're comments 'Run to Da Hills'.........Michael O'leary should dawn a 'dick turpin' mask................offering a boeing 737 aircraft in public as a gesture to bring XL airways passengers home (some may say great pr stunt) but not many people know behind the scenes, the amount of euros Ryanair are charging the CAA for the hire of the aircraft for 2 weeks, Mr Oleary trying to cash in as usual, taking advantage of someone elses demise.

Just my 2 cents worth

Our man in Havana

You have got to wonder how the travel agents are going to survive all these airlines going bust. Many agents will also go under as no one will trust them anymore and go direct to the likes of the big airlines, EI, BA, FR etc.

FOGOFUNK

cabernetgirl wrote: »

Sorry to hear you lost your holiday Hothead, hopefully you can claim your monies back, but im sure at this moment its no consollation. keep your chin up...

As for you're comments 'Run to Da Hills'.........Michael O'leary should dawn a 'dick turpin' mask................offering a boeing 737 aircraft in public as a gesture to bring XL airways passengers home (some may say great pr stunt) but not many people know behind the scenes, the amount of euros Ryanair are charging the CAA for the hire of the aircraft for 2 weeks, Mr Oleary trying to cash in as usual, taking advantage of someone elses demise.

Just my 2 cents worth

Business is business in fairness. XL have left a lot of people in the lurch, not only PAX.

Preset No.3

Yes those poor poor passengers!!! Having their HOLIDAYS ruined!! For shame and all that bull****!!

Lets not even take a second to think about the 1700 XL employees that are now out of a job! Or even the associated companies affected by not needing staff to clean, cater, fuel, or service 20 aircraft!

At least those passengers will have their jobs to come home to.

clickerfingers

iv heard aer lingus might go bust to, what do you all think of this???

FoldedShirt

clickerfingers wrote: »

iv heard aer lingus might go bust to, what do you all think of this???

Aer Lingus are sitting on a massive amount of cash. They can't spend it to their advantage at the moment but it offers a good safety net, to the extent that they can experience substantial losses over the medium-term and still remain in business. Aer Lingus will outlast most European airlines in the current climate.

skybus

No, Aer Lingus won't go bust. As the previous poster has already suggested the company has almost a billion in reserves, along with some very lucrative Heathrow slots they could sell if it became really necessary. It won't happen. Aer Lingus were recently ranked number four in the world of strongest legacy airlines to be in the best position to beat any downturn in the industry. What's ironic about the recent losses posted is that if you look at the figures carefully even though they lost 22 million, they still managed to increase their reserves by 50 million. Can't understand that myself!!

The safe airlines in Ireland are Aer Lingus and Ryanair, and to an extent CityJet due to the Air France influence. It's the smaller tour operators that are in trouble who have nothing in reserve in the bank to deal with the current situation.

Halfdog

skybus wrote: »

The safe airlines in Ireland are Aer Lingus and Ryanair, and to an extent CityJet due to the Air France influence. It's the smaller tour operators that are in trouble who have nothing in reserve in the bank to deal with the current situation.

Also Aer Arran, if things go bad for them they can always ditch all their routes and concentrate on the Arran Islands. People will always want to go there. This will also keep O'Leary off their backs.

Tenger

skybus wrote: »

What's ironic about the recent losses posted is that if you look at the figures carefully even though they lost 22 million, they still managed to increase their reserves by 50 million. Can't understand that myself!!

EI had cash of EUR748M las year, this year it is 803M. Lets call the increase interest maybe? They have stated they want to keep this to fund new aircraft and/or bases in Europe. EI have operating losses in Jan-Jun '08 of -22M. This doesn't take in account the 40M annual savings recently agreed with SR Technics and the EI staff. SO EI will be -12M for first half of 2009. Also the drop in oil prices will lower this loss even more. EI always make more money in second half of the year,they expect to break even for the second half. So their claims of possible EUR 100M losses next year seem a bit out of step with current economics unless oil shoots back to $130+.

Our man in Havana

Halfdog wrote: »

Also Aer Arran, if things go bad for them they can always ditch all their routes and concentrate on the Arran Islands. People will always want to go there. This will also keep O'Leary off their backs.

Unless he starts flying there.