Comment: Balkan Holidays merits praise for timing of closure

The news of Balkan Holidays’ decision to close its UK operation came as a shock to many in the trade, although the responses from agents suggested many no longer delivered the volumes they once did for the Bulgaria specialist.

Balkan has been a mainstay of the travel trade during the 25-plus years I have been reporting on the industry, and its Atol number – 252 – is testament to its longevity. Yet as we have reported in recent years, increasing costs and competition continue to present challenges for smaller specialist operators, and it appears those challenges were insurmountable on this occasion.

Balkan’s management is to be commended for the way it approached the closure, with nobody left out of pocket and customers overseas able to complete their holidays. Nonetheless, its departure from these shores marks the end of an era.

At the opposite end of the Atol scale, the UK’s largest licence holder, Jet2holidays, gave a quarterly update to the markets this week and confirmed a continued trend towards late sales.

The update suggested Jet2 is largely on track to fill the extra capacity it put on for 2025, though it also noted the late-booking trend made it harder to make profit predictions for the financial year.

The industry is being buffeted by multiple crosswinds which make forward planning ever-more complex – and that’s before you consider incidents like this week’s Iberian power outage or the recent Heathrow shutdown. But hopes remain that large and small operators alike can still navigate a path to a positive summer.