MYTRAVEL has
admitted for the first time it made capacity blunders last year.
UK and Ireland
chief executive Duncan Wilson said: “Our estimations were wrong.”
The group has also
conceded it mismanaged expectations leading to distrust in the City for which
group chief executive Tim Byrne “paid the price”.
But in a candid
interview at the Alpha Forum lunch during the ABTA Convention, Wilson said
MyTravel had overestimated the number of holidaymakers likely to start
travelling again after September 11.
By Christmas,
Airtours Holidays was 300,000 bookings down on 2000. The situation was
exacerbated by booking woes caused by the World Cup in June, Wilson added.
“We’ve had a dog
of a year. We overestimated the number of people who would come back into the
market,” he said.