This week in: Featuring SkyEurope, Lunn Poly and British Airways

• Thousands of travellers were left stranded when low-cost airline suspended flights and filed for bankruptcy. The Slovakia-based carrier began flying in 2002 and operated from Luton and Manchester.

• Abta warned agents to keep a close eye on cashflow following the sudden failure of agency in Scotland, which had 25 staff. The company ceased trading on August 21, blaming the recession and a decline in the family market. The in Cardiff also ceased trading this week and The Package Holiday Company in Leeds wound up earlier in August.

• denied the departure of two senior staff marked a management shake-up. Sue Biggs, UK and Ireland managing director of scheduled business (and ex-Kuoni managing director) left after a year and nine months, and group strategy director Angus Porter also departed.

• was reported as set to follow rival in banning all sales representatives from calling on its 546 shops from mid-October. The move, linked to the multiples' focus on inhouse sales, followed the decision by Airtours and First Choice to lay off their on-the-road reps in June.

• announced a £70 million upgrade of its Club Europe business?class product, including new passenger lounges and faster check-in.

• Meanwhile, former IBM director became Abta's chief executive, seven months after was forced out of the job.

• Independent agency consortia and joined a battle led by Artac (the Alliance of Retail Travel Agency Consortia) against the vertically integrated companies, claiming unfair competition and price distortion.

• In the wake of the crash, operators, including Thomson Holidays, reported a surge in demand for overseas holidays.

• A ruling on whether agents could refund money paid to them by Court Line clients but still "in the pipeline” was awaited by Travelnews (as Travel Weekly was then called). Despite this, many agents, including , had already paid out refunds.

•  confirmed its planned 1974 convention in Athens was off due to uncertainty about the political and military situation in the eastern Med.

• Charter operators and the rowed over the latter's plan to impose minimum ABC fares.

•  said it would pay agents 20% commission on cancelled bookings from 1975. It also promised all UK passenger charges and foreign airport taxes would be included in prices, making them commissionable.