newtonfox
Active Member
hope no one off here is effected :icon_sad:
11:01pm Sunday 14th September 2008
Comments (0) Have your say »
By Marc Meneaud »
A dad who shelled out more than £4,000 for his family’s dream holiday to Disneyland has been forced to cancel it following the collapse of Britain’s third largest tour operator.
Chris Sowden, 38, is one of thousands of people who had booked their holidays with tour operator XL Leisure, which has gone into administration.
Club steward Mr Sowden had booked the trip of a lifetime to Florida with wife Amanda, 37, and daughters Charlotte, six, and Emalie, nine.
He paid thousands for them to stay in a luxury hotel at the world-renowned theme park. But he has now lost the dream holiday after the company folded last Friday.
And he fears the trip will have to be cancelled altogether because he cannot afford to pay another £1,500 for them to fly to Florida.
Mr Sowden told the Telegraph & Argus: “I am absolutely gutted.
“It doesn’t look like we will be able to afford to go. When we came to book it again, all the prices had gone up. It is going to cost another £1,500 on top of the money we have already paid.
“The children don’t even know yet, we can’t bring ourselves to tell them.”
The father-of-two of Huddersfield Road, Low Moor, Bradford, booked the holiday about four months ago.
He said: “It was one of these dream holidays. I paid £4,500 and we were supposed to be staying in Disneyland.
“I put on the TV and saw XL had gone bust and thought ‘oh my God, here we go’.
“I tried ringing the company but couldn’t get through.
“At first I thought it would be alright but, as time has gone by, it doesn’t look like it will be.
“My wife is gutted.”
XL leisure went into administration in the early hours of Friday morning, leaving 90,000 holidaymakers stranded overseas. Thousands more were stuck at UK airports.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) vowed to repatriate those affected while airlines and travel agents also pledged to do everything they could to get people home.
The Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Atol) scheme, which checks tour operators and travel organisers, said “repatriation aircraft” had been scrambled.
The CAA continued to fly thousands of stranded XL holidaymakers back to the UK today as news broke yesterday of a second British tour operator going bust.
The CAA said that as of midday yesterday some 22,090 customers of XL Leisure had returned to the UK on a total of 94 repatriation flights.
And package holidaymakers who had booked through K&S Travel were also being sought alternative flights after it emerged that the small operator had also collapsed. K&S Travel told regulators that it had ceased trading, leaving around 150 people marooned in the Turkish port town of Bodrum.
XL’s administrators said most people who booked holidays with them should be eligible for a refund.
Meanwhile Bruce Dickinson, frontman of rock band Iron Maiden, stepped in to fly XL passengers back to the UK.
The heavy metal singer, pictured below, who is also a fully qualified Boeing 757 pilot, captained a specially-chartered Monarch Airlines flight from Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, and also flew around 200 passengers home from the Greek island of Kos, a spokesman for Astraeus, the airline he works for said.
The spokesman said that Dickinson has been employed as a full-time member of staff for the past seven years and regularly pilots planes that fly to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
He said: “The roster meant that Bruce Dickinson was on holiday when this was going on. After XL went bump it just so happened that Bruce, being on holiday, was available.”
l The CAA has set up an emergency helpline – 0870 5900 927 from the UK and +44 289 185 6547 from abroad – for “distressed customers”.
Last edited:
that was the chipmunks :icon_lol:
