Marooned

Thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad after budget airline collapses

ThOUSANDS of holidaymakers have been marooned abroad following the collapse of a budget airline.

Primera Air, which operated out of Stansted and Birmingham, ceased operations at midnight on Monday – shortly after some flights had departed from Britain that evening.

Phone lines and email addresses were shut down within minutes of the announcement. even a plaque of the airline’s badge above an information desk at Stansted was missing yesterday.

hundreds, if not thousands, of Britons are among those who found themselves stuck at Primera destinations including New york, Boston, Toronto and Malaga.

Many have had to pay out for replacement flights because Primera was not covered by the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s ATOL protection scheme, which only covers passengers on package holidays.

The CAA said it would not be able to rescue passengers overseas and advised those stranded to make their own way home and then check their travel insurance to see if it would cover costs.

The move by the airline to go into administration ahead of bankruptcy was so abrupt that its own cabin crew members found themselves stranded alongside passengers.

Stansted had told the company it would seize an aircraft over unpaid bills. A spokesman for Birmingham Airport, which accommodated Primera for just four months, said it was extremely disappointed.

Primera, which was based in Copenhagen, launched in 2003 and had operated flights from more than 20 countries.

It was little known in Britain until earlier this year, when it ran a large marketing campaign to drum up sales for transatlantic flights to New york, Boston, Washington and Toronto for as little as £99 one way. A combination of these very low prices and aircraft problems was blamed for the collapse.

Passengers vented their anger yesterday after it emerged that Primera was still selling transatlantic flights hours before it collapsed.

A statement released by Primera said filing for bankruptcy was a sad day for employees and passengers. Describing how the situation arose, a spokesman added: ‘In 2017, the company lost one aircraft from operations due to severe corrosion problems and had to bear the total cost of rebuilding, resulting in a loss of more than 10million euros.

‘2018 began with a fantastic start for our low-cost long-haul project with a brand-new Airbus 321neo fleet.

‘however, due to severe delays in aircraft deliveries this ended up being rocky and incredibly problematic: operational issues, cancellations of a number of flights, loss of revenues are just a few to mention.’

Aviation analyst John Strickland yesterday warned of a serious risk of further collapses at low-budget airlines, particularly those offering lowcost, long-haul routes.

he said it was ‘very tricky’ for carriers to make money and difficult for the business models to produce ‘sustainable amounts of profitability’.

‘Very tricky to make money’