THE SUDDEN collapse overnight yesterday of Scottish travel company Globespan has left around 300 tourists, users of the flyglobespan airline, stranded in Cyprus, along with thousands more throughout Europe.
In total, around 4,500 tourists who had booked package holidays or flights through the company will now have to find alternative routes home.
According to Victor Mantovani, President of Association of Cypriot Travel Agents (ACTA) there are around 300 tourists left in Cyprus with the rest mainly stranded in Egypt, Spain and Portugal. “This is according to the information we have,” he said.
Flyglobespan, the largest passenger airline in Scotland, was operating six flights a week to Paphos in summer and two per week in the winter.
Laura Douglas from Paphos had planned to fly home to spend Christmas with her family in Arran, Scotland. She had paid €200 for a flight from Paphos to Glasgow. “I booked it four weeks ago but the company has not told me anything. I’ve had no emails or phone calls. I found out through word of mouth.”
Douglas and others, including members of the Paphos Tigers rugby team, now have the choice to pay €800 for a single flight to Glasgow on another carrier, or fly into Birmingham and travel overland.
Low budget airlines stepped in to help yesterday. EasyJet announced that people stranded in the Canaries, Cyprus and Egypt can use easyJet to fly back home for £80 sterling per person.
Of the 4,400 tourists, around 1,000 had booked package holidays, and the rest only flights. There is some consolation for the package holidaymakers, who are entitled to full refunds under the terms of the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) ATOL Scheme.
Not everyone who booked only flights will get a refund however; Only those who paid over €112 on a Credit or Visa Debit Card are entitled to a refund (Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974). They are also able to claim back expenses for rebooked flights.
The firm’s collapse will not just hit passengers, as over 800 people stand to lose their jobs. Bruce Cartwright, of PricewaterhouseCoopers who will manage the administration of Globespan, told BBC yesterday “Unfortunately it is absolutely clear that the operation has ceased to fly. The operation is in wind-down, which inevitably means redundancies.”
Anyone who booked using their credit card has been asked to contact their card issuer. Otherwise, you can call the administrators helpline on +44 141 332 3233. Package holiday customers stranded overseas can call 00 44 203 441 0846.
It was reported on Tuesday that a Cypriot-controlled financial services firm was poised to bail the budget airline and package holiday company. Globespan had denied reports earlier in the week that it was on the brink of collapse.
