Flyglobespan folds

December 17th, 2009

Here we again, yet another airline, this time Flyglobespan, has collapsed as the Edinburgh-based parent company, the Globespan Group, has gone into administration. The airline operated flights from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, as well as transatlantic flights from other UK hubs including Manchester, Gatwick and Belfast. All flights have been cancelled without warning, leaving thousands of travellers stranded abroad, affecting an estimated 1,100 package holiday customers currently in Egypt and the Mediterranean and a further 27,000 with future bookings.
Package customers are protected under the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (Atol) scheme but airlines are not included in the arrangement. So while those Globespan package holiday customers will get a refund and their flight home organised for them, people who booked directly with the airline, Flyglobespan, are likely to have to meet the costs of travelling home themselves. They include an estimated 3,400 holidaymakers in Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Egypt, according to the CAA. And, around 5,000 passengers had booked to travel with Flyglobespan over the next few days will now not be able to do so and will have to find alternative flights to their destination at onr of the busiest times of the year.
Flyglobespan is the latest victim of the financial crisis which has engulfed the aviation industry in the last two years and has seen at least two dozen carriers collapse, including Silverjet, Zoom, EOS, Sterling, Maxjet, XL Airways and most recently, SkyEurope. Those who booked directly with the airline are unlikely to get their money back. This is because they are not covered by the ATOL scheme which provides protection for those who have bought flights as part of a package holiday. Travel industry experts said those people who had booked flights through travel agents might receive a refund but those travellers, who made bookings through the company's website, will not qualify.
The only hope for passengers who bought flights directly from Flyglobespan is to seek cash back from their credit card company, assuming they used a credit card for the transaction, but anyone who paid using a debit card, cash or a cheque can only hope that their holiday travel insurance provides protection against the collapse of an airline failing. Not all travel insurance policies will offer this but some insurers offer Passenger Protection Insurance sold separately or part of a travel insurance policy but always check the small print if this is offered because these are quite often restrictive in their cover.