The administrator for AirFastTickets’ UK office is considering legal action against the company’s US arm, as TTG learns the UK branch of the company collapsed owing more than £23 million.
AirFastTickets UK entered administration in October, at which point it was suggested the figure owed would be just over £10 million.
However, in the administrator’s report published on December 4, and seen by TTG, it was revealed that it in fact owed a total of £23.7 million to 162 companies.
Geoff Carton-Kelly, partner at administrators FRP Advisory, said the firm was re-examining the records it had been supplied with to pursue a potential legal case.
“We have to make sure that the records that we have been provided with are accurate and can be supported if we bring a legal claim, because that would be costly.
“We are investigating whether to bring a legal claim to recover the funds that are owed to [the creditors of] the UK company,” he added.
Carton-Kelly said the company was focusing on the US arm of AirFastTickets as documents suggested this was the legal parent of the UK office, despite the original company being founded in Greece.
The two biggest creditors named include the Greek and German arms of AirFastTickets, owed £11.7 million and £3.4 million respectively, and referred to as the Fast Group SA and the Fast Group Deutschland AG.
HMRC is also listed as a creditor, owed a total of £26,437.
The rest of the creditors largely comprise airlines, a number of which are owed several hundred thousands of pounds, including:
- Lufthansa (£760,786)
- Air Canada (£696,654)
- Air France (£425,020)
- KLM (£381,277)
- Turkish Airlines (£250,822)
Despite customers venting their anger in online forums, Carton-Kelly said he had only received claims from “a few individuals”.
The report was published just a week before it emerged that Iata had voted to move to fortnightly payments, in a bid to protect airline members from financial collapses.
Alan Bowen, legal advisor of the Association of Atol Companies, said more questions needed to be asked as to how AirFastTickets was able to accrue so much debt so quickly.
“One must ask what investigating there was when the firm was growing at the speed it was,” he said. “Is it feasible for a company’s turnover to grow at such a phenomenal rate?”
A spokesperson for AirFastTickets said: “Unfortunately due to the ongoing process we are regrettably unable to comment on these issues at this time, however we will as soon as this is again possible.”
