The plight of 175,000 tourists: A major German travel agency's collapse

Two weeks after the German travel agency's bankruptcy was announced, the worst-case scenario has come true. All planned trips have been cancelled, meaning no holidays for at least 175,000 tourists.

At the beginning of June, Europe's third-largest travel agency, Germany's FTI Touristik, declared bankruptcy. At that time, its representatives assured that they were working to ensure that "trips that have already started can be completed as planned." Information also emerged that only trips planned until 5 July 2024 would be cancelled. Meanwhile, refunds for affected tourists were supposed to start within two weeks.

However, FTI's bankruptcy trustee, Axel Bierbach, announced the cancellation of all trips with a start date of 6 July. This means the cancellation of holidays for 175,000 people.

The situation of tourists who bought trips from FTI Touristik is complicated because some companies serving FTI customers at their destinations have also ceased to exist.

It is unknown what the total value of the trips is for now, but it is certainly in the hundreds of millions of euros. The purchased holidays include organised events and individual tourist services bought at FTI group offices, such as FTI Touristik, Big Xtra, or 5 vor Flug.

FTI Group was Europe's third largest tourism company in terms of turnover, following TUI Group and Der Touristik. The company employed 11,000 people worldwide. The last bankruptcy of a similar scale occurred in 2019 when the travel giant Thomas Cook collapsed. After the bankruptcy of this travel agency, nearly 600,000 tourists faced problems returning home.