11 December 2003

Yearly loss far greater than projection
MyTravel, the struggling tour operator, insisted today that it was not going out of business despite reporting a yearly loss of £910m, far worse than the £600million loss that the city had projected with the company hit by a raft of one-off accounting charges.

Chief executive Peter McHugh said that the company had had an "extremely poor" year and conceded that "poor management information systems" were partly to blame, impacting the company's "ability to make reliable forecasts and take appropriate action.

Loss over summer period
"I understand the anxiety that exists in the market place, but there's no chance we are going to go down at any minute," Mr McHugh said. "The critical element is cash, and while a loss of £910m is a very large number, only a small proportion is a cash loss."

Things have gone from bad to worse for the former Airtours since last year. Last month the company revealed that it had even managed to make a loss over the summer period - leaving many observers questioning how it could be in business at all if it could not even make money at peak holiday times.

"Too many aeroplanes, cruise ships and beds..."
Mr McHugh blamed the company's troubles on structural issues, particularly its surfeit of fixed costs - "too many aeroplanes, too many cruise ships and too many beds". The company's brands include the Going Places chain, as well as tour operators Bridge, Tradewinds, Cresta and the airline MyTravelLite.

Earlier this week one of its rivals, First Choice Holidays, said summer bookings in its main UK business were about 20% below the same time last year, although it said it was confident business would pick up

A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said that it "definitely had no plans" to revoke the company's Air Travel Organisers' Licence, which it renewed in the autumn.

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