Flight prices rise sharply in wake of XL failure

Travel agencies are saying that flight prices have risen sharply as customers affected by the collapse of XL Leisure scramble to rebook their holidays.

One example is the airfare on a 19 September easyJet flight to Tenerife that has doubled in price, according to a London travel agency, to £437 return.

The London agent, asking to remain anonymous, said to the Times Online that she is flooded with calls from XL customers anxious to rebook. She also reported that a Thomson flight from Gatwick to Lanzarote, for two persons, had jumped from £460 to £1,342.

A correspondent on a Tripadvisor forum wrote: “You will need to book new flights asap. My flight to Orlando in October has gone from £1,300 for family of four booked last month - looked today now want £3,150.”

Although the approximately 67,000 passengers stranded on holidays abroad are being helped to arrange flights home, several thousand others are not and are in the position of having to find their way home without help.

A hefty percentage of the 200,000 travellers having advance bookings with XL made their bookings independently and are faced with much higher prices on replacement flights.

A Clapham-based traveller, Terry Ramsey, found two seats on easyJet to replace his XL booking to Crete. When he booked with XL, he paid £285 per person, using a debit card, and to buy the tickets on easyJet, he was forced to pay an additional £390 per person. On top of that, his flight lands at Heraklion, and not Hania as originally planned, so he will now have to pay an additional £130 to hire a car for transport to his resort accommodation.

www.easyjet.com