Another day of crisis management in the travel industry as yet another airline dissappears from our radar. The goodnews is this shouldn't affect any one adversly as the Tour Operators are protecting clients on varying airlines. They are contacting clients in destination directly and advising them of their new return travel arrangements. I can think of worse things than being forced to spend an extra day in sunny Mexico :)
Here is the lastest report from Sunquest Vacations regarding Sky Service Airlines.
"Skyservice Airlines was placed into receivership by the Ontario Court earlier today and has ceased operations with immediate effect. We are pleased to announce that we have organized replacement flights for all of our customers who might otherwise have been affected.
Sunquest did not have any ownership interest in Skyservice. Skyservice was an independent supplier to Sunquest and since 1995 it has operated aircraft for Sunquest and other tour operators between Canada and destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico. The only Sunquest flights affected by the Skyservice shut-down originate in Toronto or Winnipeg, and represent less than a third of the remaining flights for Sunquest’s winter program which ends April 30, 2010. No flights were scheduled for today and replacement flights for the month of April have been arranged with other carriers, principally Air Transat and Enerjet.
Seventy percent of our remaining April winter flights are not affected and none of our customers on flights after May 1, 2010 are affected.
Currently, we are focused on minimizing disruption to customers, not only those currently in destination but also those scheduled to travel over the coming days and weeks. Since it is late in the winter season, a relatively small number of our passengers were booked on Skyservice flights and we have the capability to respond effectively to this situation. Sunquest representatives both here in Canada and in destination are moving quickly to contact everyone to provide updated flight details. We expect to have reached all those customers by the end of the day.
We have also increased our support centre staffing and hours of operation to provide you with information for all individual passengers. Details will also be available at www.sunquestagent.ca.
The loss of Skyservice is regrettable for the Canadian travel industry and for us here at Thomas Cook and Sunquest in particular. However, we have long-established relationships with a number of flying partners and we are able to turn to these partners to quickly and seamlessly arrange alternate flights for our customers scheduled to travel with Skyservice."
Safe Journeys Everyone, until next time.
