Flyglobespan collapse: Virgin Atlantic bring flight crew back from India.

More than 8,000 calls flooded customer helplines yesterday, as efforts continued to bring home thousands of holidaymakers hit by the collapse of Flyglobespan.
Some 550 staff at Edinburgh-based parent Globespan Group also lost their jobs yesterday. Forty are staying on temporarily to staff the helplines and help wind up the business, but 60 baggage handlers employed by subsidiary firm Alba Ground Handling at Glasgow Airport are likely to be the only ones to keep their jobs.
Unions accused the firm of leaving overseas staff stranded and having to pay their own way home. Unite said some had been thrown out of their hotel rooms. Virgin Atlantic stepped in to bring flight crew back from India.
Passengers who had expected to fly out from Edinburgh and Glasgow yesterday for Christmas breaks desperately tried to arrange alternative flights.
Bruce Cartwright, of the administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers, said there were no funds available and there had been no option but to stop flights and make staff redundant. He said no-one would be left stranded anywhere – "we absolutely want to get everyone home".
All flights were cancelled on Wednesday after Globespan went into administration, followed by the airline yesterday. This has been blamed on Globespan's failure to secure extra funding from Halcyon Investments, an expected backer, after hitting cashflow problems.
Mr Cartwright said a Globespan helpline had received 8,000 calls yesterday and two numbers had now been set up – 0131-466 7612 and 0141-332 3233.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it would be chartering nearly 60 flights to bring 1,100 package holidaymakers home over the next two weeks. The passengers, in 11 Mediterranean and Canary Islands resorts, are covered under the official Air Travel Organisers Licensing (Atol) scheme. The CAA said there were spare seats on other airlines' flights for the remaining 3,400 Flyglobespan passengers to get home. But they are not protected by Atol and will have to pay for their own tickets.
All but four of the 24 Flyglobespan routes from Edinburgh and Glasgow are covered by other airlines: the exceptions are Madeira; Barcelona; Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt from Edinburgh; and Hurghada in Egypt from Glasgow.
A further 117,000 people had advance bookings with Flyglobespan, of which only 27,000 have Atol protection.
Unite said flight crew and other staff had been stranded overseas, including those working on the airline's charter contracts in India and Saudi Arabia.
18/12/09 Alastair Dalton & Shan Ross/The Scotsman, UK

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Categories: Foreign Dec 2009