With Zoom's demise and now FlyGlobeSpan, the UK - Canada market is once again subject to the Air Canada / British Airways duopoly :ouch:

And Air Transat/Canadian Affair/TCX (effectively one co-ordinated operation). There is also a new Canadian tour operator meant to be chartering Monarch to do some flights out of Gatwick next summer

Air Italy have picked up the MOD contract until something more permanent is sorted out.

Rescue of stranded Flyglobespan passengers begins | Business | guardian.co.uk

Reading the Herald today it mentioned that E-Clear, the credit card clearing company, had with held £35Million! From GSM, Their own money. Im led to think then that this put them into Admin.

What I want someone to tell me though is - How can a company with hold anothers finance? The money is GSM's so why was it being with held?

It looks very very bleak but theres nothing to say GSM can't pull through with more cash - bigger miricales have happened! (Im a very optimistic person, but it is of course doubtful)

Constructive thoughts and answers only please.

hope the people at e-clear are happy now that were all out of a job.

hope there is a puplic investagtion into E-clear to find out why so many airline that used them have gone bust

hopefully the administrator can get the money and maybe re start operations and find a new buyer

but the scottish avation seen does look bleak scotlands airline gone and Alba ground handling gone just like that

Are Alba gone? There website is still showing as normal. If Alba had been shut-down, would a message not appear on the website, like that on the globespan website?

Alba Ground Handling | Glasgow Airport | Flyglobespan | Edinburgh

Hmm. Doubtful, those funds will get used for credit card charge backs, of which there will be plenty.

I suspect E-Clear needs that cash for it's own libailities. Like has been suggested, something naughty is going on.

Its a shame total shame if this is what happened. 35 Million for god siak surely Globespan would have had some sort of legal case there. Its also such a shame to think that it was the rest of the Globespan group and not the airline Flyglobespan that had brought them down.
The thing is unlike a shop administration the company ceases straight away so it doesnt make t very attractive for an airline to take them over with all the problems in toe. It would have been amazing for Globespan to have found some scottish or british investment.

Murky indeed. Try Googling 'e-clear financial results' and select the second entry (Guardian website). Sorry, I'm sh*t at inserting hyperlinks!

I *believe* flybe have stepped in to underwrite Alba for a week whilst something is sorted/a buyer found. If this is true it would seem flybe have saved the jobs at Alba....for now at least.

This is purely what I have been told so apologies if it is just rumour.

well they may of saved the jobs at glasgow but not here at edinburgh :{

Surely someone such as TCX MON will see that this opens up opportunities in Scotland and move in, chances are this time next year you will be working for one those operators , the jocks are still going to want to cause mayhem somewhere sunny next summer

Apparently Thomas Cook, Thomsonfly and Virgin Atlantic have today all announced extra flights from Glasgow next summer.

ALBA at EDI simply handle GSM only. At GLA they handle flybe, PIA and the VS summer flts.

Thoughts are with you 'PAL' and BIG-C ;)

e-clear - a partial explanation
 

Douglas Fraser's BBC blog discusses some of the issues surrounding the funds that e-clear have held back from Globespan. As I mentioned in previous posts, nothing to be too surprised about. However, there is some debate over the actual amount of money involved. As it stands, I too have issues over the arithmetic, but I'm not privy to forward sales made by credit card for 2010 and it's not clear whether its just sales on flights, package holidays or both. The only people who will have the definitive answers would be the company accountants, directors, and eventually PWC.

Were e-clear involved with XL & Sky Europe?

yes they were and also zoom airline who will be next

Looks like they were

If you look at the e-clear website, they seem to specialise in the travel and tourism industry.