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CAA confirms latest tour operator failures

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed the failure of two tour operators at the end of last week.

Flight-only operator FT Tours of central London failed on Thursday (September 15) and sports-package operator Pumpkin Tours, based in Southampton, ceased trading on Friday.

Neither company had clients abroad at the time and the CAA confirmed the failures of both firms were “managed”. The CAA could not say how many customers have forward bookings, but the numbers at Pumpkin Tours are believed to be “in the hundreds”, while the CAA described FT Tours as “a small licence holder”.

Both companies were Atol holders and all customers appear to be financially protected under the Atol scheme.

Pumpkin Tours sold horse-racing and Formula 1 packages to worldwide events as well as city breaks. FT Tours offered flights to holiday destinations including Turkey, Egypt, the Canary Islands, Dubai, Orlando and Thailand.

Neither company was a member of travel association Abta.

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