An emergency delegation from the southwest is attending World Travel Market next week in a bid to increase the number of flights from Bristol airport to replace those lost when XL Lesiure Group collapsed.
South West Independent Federation of Travel Agents head of marketing Anthony Goord and Bristol airport head of commercial aviation and route development Shaun Browne and head of sales Jason Wescott have arranged meetings with tour operators, agents and airlines at the show.
They are hoping to persuade the industry to introduce new routes from the airport after it lost around 200,000 passengers a year, many of whom would have booked with niche operators, following XL’s collapse.
Goord said: “A lot of smaller independent tour operators were using seats on XL flights and XL’s demise has now taken a lot of flying options away from us. We need to have independent operators to support and we’re struggling.”
Instead he said many southwest agents are forced to turn to the Thomas Cook Group and TUI Travel, which each have two aircraft based at Bristol airport in the summer and one apiece in the winter, the only charter aircraft now based there.
Goord added: “It really gives us a lack of choice.”