MYTRAVEL founder David Crossland has revealed his
personal disappointment in witnessing the holiday empire he created crash down
around him.
As the group reported pre-tax losses of £72.8 million
and revealed plans to sell one of its specialist businesses by Christmas,
Crossland opened his heart to Travel Weekly, describing the year as “the worst
in [MyTravel’s] history”.
Starting out as a travel agent tea boy who went on to
set up the Airtours business 30 years ago, Crossland was due to retire last
week.
But he stayed on after cracks appeared following the
events of September 11, with a series of profits warnings and problems with the
ompany’s wayward accounting policies.
Crossland – who as of last week is no longer being
paid by the company, but has been kept on to advise the new management team –
revealed the personal pain he has suffered as events have unfolded over recent
months.
“I am very disappointed about these results,” he said.
“I’ve spent 30 years building up a
company which once employed two people and now has 25,000 staff. But in the
last eight weeks I’ve seen pretty awful things written and not been able to say
anything because we have been in a closed period.”
“It’s terrible for the 25,000 people we employ. They
are sitting there thinking ‘what the heck is going on?’”