10 October 2008

Kiss Flights website established

Start-up flight-only company Kiss Flights has established a website to start selling to 11 destinations next summer.

Described as a "dynamic travel company", the firm has been set up by Gatwick-based aviation broking firm Meridian Aviation.

It says Kiss Flights is a trading name of Meridian Aviation and the companies share the same address.

Kiss, which is advertising ATOL bonding protection on its website, plans to fly from Gatwick and Manchester to seven Greek islands, Dalaman in Turkey, the Egyptian Red Seas resorts of Sham el Sheikh and Hurghada and the Canary Islands.

All were key holiday destinations served by collapsed XL Leisure Group airline XL Airways.

Managers of former XL seat-only arm Freedom Flights attended this week's ABTA Travel Convention in Gran Canaria in the guise of Kiss Flights.

Meridian Aviation is acting as the general sales agent for Swedish carrier Viking Airlines, which is due to operate the flights for Kiss using two Boeing 737s.

In a note to agents on the kissflights.com site, the company says: "Our aim is to deliver outstanding service, competitive prices and commission to the independent travel agent,

"We've chosen the most popular destinations including Egypt, Greece, Turkey and the Canary Islands specifically for the independent travel trade and with the dynamic packaging market firmly in mind."

The company aims to offer a low deposit payment scheme, offering better rates for early bookings.

It says "innovative trade promotions" will be run during key industry booking periods to help leverage seat sales.

by Phil Davies

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Your Comments (3)

Give us an Escrow Account

We (and other ATOL holders) would love to buy from and support a new flight only player. To get this support there is one thing that needs to be done - to allow ATOL holders to pay flight balances into an escrow account to protect it until departure. We shall be asking for this and it will be interesting to see what Kiss Flights say. If the answer is negative I do not see why any ATOL holders should put their money at risk. I am not going to give my cash flow to a new player unless they are willing to protect it - and if they cannot do this then it cannot expect to have my confidence - but if they can, then it would have our fullest support

By Nick Cooper, Monday, October 13, 2008
Not Again!

As soon as I read words like 'dynamic' scattered around a press release I know that someone has been at the 'Copy Writing for dummies', and head for the hills!

By Bob Hinton, Friday, October 10, 2008
Kiss (off) Flights

Great! And what confidence should we take from this? Sincerely hope history does not repeat itself. What an amazing industry we belong to. I'm sure the erstwhile XL passengers will be queueing up.

By Andrew Blair, Friday, October 10, 2008