Flyglobespan was owed £34-36m in online payments: reports
Published: 21 Dec 2009
It has emerged that Flyglobespan, which was placed in administration last week, was owed £34 - 36 million of its own cash by a payment service provider when it collapsed.
It is being reported that the sum held by E-Clear included a staggering £20 million from fares paid by passengers who had already travelled. The rest of the amount is believed to have been paid to E-Clear by holidaymakers for future flights. Administrators confirmed the source and scale of the debt which contributed to the airline's crash, according to a report filed by dailyrecord.co.uk. It is being indicated that the company suffered major cash flow problems in the last six months caused by delays in receiving payments from E-Clear.
Bruce Cartwright, joint administrator and head of business recovery services at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Scotland, reportedly confirmed that the money held by E-Clear was thought to be in the region of £30million. He claimed it was too early to say if the cash could have saved the firm. According to a report filed by The Guardian, he explained E-Clear was likely to face refund claims from Globespan customers who booked flights that the company would no longer be able to deliver, but he stressed that at least half of the sum withheld related to flights weeks or even months earlier.
On Friday, the Scottish finance secretary, John Swinney, weighed into the controversy, telling a radio programme in Scotland: “If they [E-Clear] had actually passed on to Flyglobespan the money that the company was entitled to have – from members of the travelling public, who had flown and who had landed again and there was no risk about their tickets – that should have been with the company and the company would have had a better chance of survival.”
For its part, E-Clear has denied it was responsible for the collapse of the airline.
The company reportedly stated: “E-Clear is committed to working closely with the administrators of Globespan Group to clarify and address the various complexities around the airline’s financial position, so that matters may be resolved as quickly as possible.”
It has also been reported that bankruptcy officials at Slovak firm SkyEurope have been pursuing another legal claim against E-Clear, for an undisclosed sum, following the carrier’s collapse in June.
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