Wow! There is a lot of talking going on. I am completely lost on the activities being planned and discussed. Hopefully there is a crib sheet somewhere to see everything that's going on!
Anyway, I saw this article today and thought of those of you who may have had flights booked via Flyglobespan. I'm posting here in case you haven't seen it.
Collapsed airline's passengers told to expect just 5 per cent refunds on tickets
ALASTAIR DALTON TRANSPORT CORRESPONDENT
674 words
24 March 2010
The Scotsman
SC
2
7
English
(c) 2010
THOUSANDS of passengers of collapsed Scottish airline Flyglobespan will receive just 5 per cent of their lost money, administrators predict.
PricewaterhouseCoopers said 8,000 of the Edinburgh-based firm's customers would be left with virtually nothing because their bookings had not been protected.
PWC said average bookings were GBP 350-GBP 400 each - which meant such passengers would get up to just GBP 20 back. They added that it could take two years to settle the claims.
These customers had booked flights which did not have the protection of being paid for with credit or Visa debit cards.
The news was broken to some 70 passengers and other creditors of the airline at a meeting in Edinburgh yesterday.
Among them, Robert Russel paid GBP 300 for a flight to Lanzarote with his wife Tove. He stands to receive just GBP 15.
Mr Russel, 67, a retired biology teacher said: "I'm hoping to get some of it back, but I have my doubts. People were pretty resigned to the news. No-one was angry, but people have lost a lot of money - one gentleman there had lost GBP 800 on his flights."
Retired couple John and Maureen Roberts from Livingston paid GBP 356 for flights to their timeshare apartment in Lanzarote in June - and have now had to fork out another GBP 637 for replacement flights. Even though they paid by credit card, they will lose out because they booked through a
travel agent, which is among the airline's creditors.
Mr Roberts said: "It's an absolute scandal. To receive just 5 per cent refund is diabolical."
The majority of nearly 40,000 passengers who lost bookings when the airline went into administration in December will receive full refunds through their payment cards. A total of GBP 12 million has so far been paid back to customers in this way.
Joint administrator Bruce Cartwright said the 5 per cent refund prediction was based on nothing being reclaimed from card processing company E-Clear, whose GBP 35m debt to the airline was the immediate cause of its collapse.
A meeting of those owed money by E-Clear, which is also in administration, will be held in London today.
Mr Cartwright said PWC was also investigating "contractual relationships between various parties" but declined to elaborate.
Ian Oakley-Smith, also of PWC, said it had found only "relatively modest" E-Clear assets so far.
He said: "There is no obvious pot of gold just yet. We knew E-Clear had cashflow problems but were shocked to find there was no money at all."
He said the maximum Flyglobespan could reclaim from E-Clear - if it existed - was GBP 20m.
Mr Cartwright said Flyglobespan - the trading name for Globespan Airways - collapsed with total debts of some GBP 40m.
Other creditors include around 600 staff who lost their jobs.
Mr Cartwright said the airline had some assets still to be sold, including a Boeing 737, but nothing "of the magnitude of GBP 35m".
A separate meeting for creditors of the Globespan Group, the airline's parent company, will be held in Edinburgh on 1 April. Assets include its Edinburgh head office in Colinton, premises in Glasgow and hotels in Majorca.
The group's creditors include 9,000 package holiday customers who were protected by the industry's Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (ATOL) scheme, which does not cover those with flights alone.
Mr Cartwright said Flyglobespan had been in difficulties for two years since making a GBP 13m loss, caused by the airline launching several routes "it should not have done" and leased aircraft problems. He predicted it had been on course to break even, or make a small loss, last year, after recording a GBP 1m profit in 2008.
Brian Potter, Scottish Passenger Agents Association president, said all passengers should be protected, regardless of how they booked or paid - but this would require a GBP 1 premium on tickets.
I hope you get your results back asap so you can organise yourselves. Did you tell them about your cruise and needing to know the reults as soon as ?
(I have procrastinating catching up for several days now and you're about 25 pages ahead of me and so I'm just not going to be able to catch up....I'll try to jump back in here!)
on board
We find it so relaxing, and just feel so chilled out as soon as we arrive. We love walking to DTD, and usually walk back too. We ask for Grandstand so we are at the first bus stop. We walk a round trip to DTD via West End, all the way through and back via Cangress Park. We like sitting on the rocking chairs outside Artist's Palette, people watching. I don't think I would like to stay at the Treehouse Villas if I used the Disney buses with having to shuttle over to SSR, that would just annoy me so much. I would have to use the car to the parks.
I so want to cruise with old friends and new.
Well done!!!
