13 Sep 2008

Tourists stranded by holiday company failure

11:52 am on 13 September 2008

The collapse of Britain's third largest package holiday group has left up to 90,000 British travellers stranded abroad.

The decision to place XL Leisure Group into administration has grounded the company's 21 planes.

There are 67,000 stranded people who booked directly with XL, and another 23,000 who booked via other companies.

XL flies mainly from bases at Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow airports to about 50 destinations in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, North Africa and North America.

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority says it is making arrangements to help customers, and other airlines have already offered to help get the holidaymakers home.