E Clear Assets - just US$100K

In what must be a shock to a lot of people the UK based bankruptcy administrators for failed credit card processing firm E-Clear have uncovered just £72,000 after months of investigations into the controversial credit card processing firm and said the situation was “looking bleak”.

Remember this is the company that in effect brought down 2 major players in the UK - the Globespan Group at the end of last year and previously in September 2008 XL Leisure.

For an industry as heavily regulated as the travel business is and supposedly the UK banking regulations are tight - this is really quite shocking.

Let's just hope that there is something positive that comes out of this. For now - it would behoove any transaction based player to check into your credit card processor. There could still be some scary stuff out there and let's hope you are not caught out like the hundreds of employees who lost their livelihood and those who lost real money - investors and creditors alike.

The UK's Plane Graveyard

Here are some great pics from the UK's very own Plane graveyard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/3401080/The-budget-airline-graveyard.html

So far I have seen several ex-Zoom 767s. In Miami at the AAI facility. Just 2 weeks ago in Atlanta at DL's facility. Now I can see one in this picture.

The UK's climate is not exactly the best place in the world to store aircraft out in the open. I hope they move them soon...

Cheers

XL Recovery - final stats

The CAA (UK's regulator) gave up the statistics from the repatriations it conducted as a result of the XL collapse. The numbers are staggering:

222 repatriation flights from 40 destinations,
repatriating some 83,000 holidaymakers to the UK,
in the 17 days following XL’s 12 September collapse

Wow!

Whose next?

According to Paddy's bets... it was Fly Globespan but they have taken the death list off the site.

Cheers

XL Group Collapses affecting more than 1/4 million

Today XL Group including a variety of travel sellers and the airline abruptly shut down after failing to secure funding.

We reported on the struggles several weeks ago when Zoom also went out of business.

According to the UK's regulatory body - the CAA, the collapse will affect 85,000 people currently due to depart today or already on their trips. A further 200,000 forward bookings are also affected.

The 4 airlines in the group (UK, Ireland, Germany and France moved about 4 million passengers in 2007. So this is a large chunk of traffic that has been carved out of the UK specialist travel niche.

Its pretty nasty out there.

XL Group Struggles - day of reckoning is very soon

Britain's XL Group that includes several holiday concerns - has been operating in the shadows behind other groups happy to occupy a niche that was the traditional middle tier of Britain's Holiday market. However the consolidation at the top of the market and the global economic trends of a down market and high price of oil have not been kind.

The group last month canceled a number of long haul services on some of its older 767s to the Caribbean. Now it is in a fight for its life. Even the demise of Zoom wont help.

Urgent (read desperate) talks with its bankers are underway.

Fuel Takes Another Victim - Niche Flying from Europe

A lot of noise has been made about the impact of the dramatic rise in the cost of fuel affecting US airlines. However everyone is affected. Now comes news that those airlines who offer niche services from Europe are starting to cut back. Even though the price of Jet Fuel is down from its all time highs in May the price is still about $200 more than this time last year. (See chart attached)

This week XL the UK Based leisure group and airline announced it was canceling its winter program to the Caribbean.

Their airline XL Airways will stop flying charters to Grenada, Tobago, St Kitts, Antigua, Barbados and St Lucia from November because, it said, rising fuel costs had obliterated margins on the routes.

As a result BA and Virgin (the surviving airlines on many of these routes) must be breathing a sigh of relief. However pity the poor passenger who bought a package based on these charters as they will most certainly lose their deposits on hotel rooms over Xmas unless they can find alternative arrangements - at this stage very unlikely. It will be particularly devastating to the smaller islands like St Kitts which now loses its only direct EU-Island link.

Cheers