More travel firms set to go under as winter holiday demand plunges

HOLIDAYMAKERS were warned last night that more travel firms were likely to collapse this year because of weak demand after Kiss Flights became the third operator to cease trading in five weeks.

Scottish travel agents said passengers were being put off booking trips by the state of the economy and disruption caused by the Icelandic ash cloud, strikes and threatened stoppages.

The Scottish Passenger Agents Association said more company failures were predicted this autumn as cash flow dried up because of lack of advance winter bookings.

President Brian Potter expressed surprise yesterday at the timing of Kiss Flights' demise, but said the firm may have had an insufficiently high profile to attract business.

The company, which flew from airports including Glasgow - and Edinburgh last month - took over several routes from the Scottish airline Flyglobespan, which collapsed in December.

However, it had been hit by the domino effect of tour operator Goldtrail, some of whose customers it carried, going bust last month. Goldtrail went into administration leaving 16,000 holidaymakers abroad, while a third firm, Sun4u, went under last week, affecting 1,200.

The closure of Kiss Airways on Tuesday has affected some 60,000 people, though around 13,000 holidaymakers will be able to return home as normal under the Civil Aviation Authority's (CAA) Air Travel Organisers' Licensing protection scheme (Atol).

Mr Potter said those yet to go on holiday would also be covered by the Atol scheme if they had booked a flight and accommodation package.

However, he warned such travellers they were likely to have to pay the extra cost of higher-price alternative flights.

The CAA managed to get more than 1,500 Kiss customers on flights from the UK to the Mediterranean yesterday. But this ended at 6pm when an arrangement made by the CAA to allow customers to travel as normal expired.

For some holidaymakers, this was their second successive blow as they had booked with Kiss Flights having already fallen victim to the collapse of Goldtrail.

One double whammy sufferer was Margaret Cleave, 67, from Glasgow, who originally booked with Goldtrail and is still waiting for a refund of nearly 1,000 for flights to Turkey for herself and her sister.

She had booked for the same dates in September through Kiss Flights. She said: "We cannot afford to lose any of this money and cannot believe this has happened again. We will be a bit wary when we next go on holiday. We will get our money back but do not know when."

Kiss, which operated flights to Greece, Egypt, Turkey and the Canary Islands, folded after its owner Flight Options ceased trading.

Mr Potter said the outlook for next year was brighter, since more people were likely to book a foreign holiday having decided to stay in Britain this summer.