Jetline Travel dissolved owing £4.7m after ceasing trading in March

The Jetline Travel administration wound up last month with the company, which ceasing trading in March, dissolved owing £4.7 million.

 

Trade creditors were left owed £3.4 million, in what was the costliest failure since Luxtripper in October 2023, with no protection of pipeline money after Jetline left Abta in 2020 over its handling of pandemic-era refunds.

 

Cruise lines were among the hardest hit with Princess Cruises owed £427,000, Carnival £248,000, Holland America Line £236,000, Cunard £132,000 and Royal Caribbean £175,000.

 

Among other suppliers, flight provider Aviate was owed £523,000 and Bedsonline £285,000.

 

It was Carnival brands Princess Cruises, Cunard and Holland America Line which triggered the company’s collapse after cancelling some Jetline bookings “due to breach of contract” in failing to transfer customer payments on time.

 

Joint administrators Alan Clark of Carter Clark and Neil Bennett of Leonard Curtis reported that Barclays Bank, owed £1.2 million, would be “repaid in full”.

 

The bank’s claim comprised a £182,000 overdraft, £383,000 on an outstanding Covid loan, £313,000 on company credit cards and £344,000 on a mortgage, all secured against Jetline’s two properties in north London.

 

The administrators were also able to settle employee claims for holiday pay and wage arrears totalling £37,000.

 

But an additional £425,550 in employee claims for compensation in lieu of notice and redundancy went unpaid.

 

Almost 400 consumers were left £800,000 out of pocket by the failure, and HM Revenue and Customs was left with two claims, for £128,000 and £81,000, unpaid.

 

The Air Travel Trust refunded 1,589 Atol-protected customers at a cost of £1.44 million, but the draw on the fund was lower than this at £1.05 million as £388,000 was held in a company escrow account required as a condition of Jetline’s Atol licence.

 

The sale of the company’s assets, including databases and technology, to Travelodeal in April realised just £60,000.

 

Jetline had traded since 2000, selling in the UK as Jetline Holidays and Jetline Cruises, and as Jetline Vacations in the US where it launched in 2019.

 

Owner and director Steven Roberts and co-director Andrew Todd had not met the requirement to file a statement of affairs when the administrators filed their final report. A loan of £137,000 to an unnamed director also remained outstanding.