The German travel agency FTI Touristik has canceled all booked trips, a decision made by the creditors’ committee on Friday. Axel Bierbach, the provisional insolvency administrator, announced that all trips planned from July 6 onwards would be cancelled. Despite efforts by the German Travel Insurance Fund (DRSF) to settle existing reimbursement claims with other tour operators, no solution was found to take over the package tours.
To provide FTI customers with the necessary planning security before the summer holidays and allow them to rebook their trips with another provider, all remaining trips have now been cancelled. This affects approximately 175,000 package tours and certain individual services booked for departures from July 6 by FTI Touristik GmbH, BigXtra Touristik GmbH, and the sales brand 5vorFlug.
With the cancellation of all package tours, FTI’s travel agency partners can now offer alternative trips to their customers. The company has started informing customers, travel agencies, and hotels about the cancellations. The total volume of existing travel bookings is estimated to be a high three-digit million amount. All deposits made by package holidaymakers will be refunded by the Travel Guarantee Fund (DRSF), ensuring that every package holidaymaker gets their money back. However, customers who have only booked individual services like flights, hotels, and transfers through FTI are not entitled to a refund from DRSF.
The provisional insolvency administrator has secured the future of approximately 230 TVG travel agencies by announcing that Raiffeisen Vertriebs GmbH is taking over FTI’s 50 percent share in the Touristik Vertriebsgesellschaft TVG. This move allows the travel agencies to continue operating under new ownership.
