British tourists faced more overseas chaos on Sunday after a travel company specialising in tours to Turkey collapsed and all holidays were cancelled. The Civil Aviation Authority said K&S Travel, which also trades under the name Travel Turkey, had suspended operations as of Saturday night, affecting about 550 people who are either on vacation or due to depart shortly.
"It”s a very small failure, but it”s a failure all the same," said a spokesman for the CAA, confirming the closure of the travel company. K&S Travel could not immediately be reached for comment.
The collapse follows that of XL Leisure Group, which grounded all its flights on Friday, stranding around 85,000 tourists in the United States, Europe, North Africa and the Caribbean.
XL blamed the global economic downturn and volatile fuel prices for its sudden collapse, the latest in a series of failures in the travel industry. Long queues and emotional scenes continued at airports around the world on Sunday as returning XL passengers tried to find out how they would get home and those due to start holidays realised their plans were in disarray.
The collapse of K&S had immediately affected about 150 tourists, the CAA said, most of them holidaying in the Turkish resort of Bodrum. When their holidays are over, the CAA said it would charter an aircraft to fly them back to Britain.
A further 400 travellers due to depart on holidays booked through K&S in the coming days are also affected. The CAA urged them not to travel to the airport to attempt to get flights as the bookings were cancelled, but said they would be entitled to a full refund.
Resource: Reuters
