Holiday slump hits My Travel

The company blames 11 September for the slowdown

The My Travel group, which used to be called Airtours, has warned that it might end the year in the red.

It lost £122m in the first six months of its financial year to the end of March.

Normally it makes a loss in the first half of the year, but a profit over the full financial year.

This time, thought, it has warned that it is not confident it will recover those losses.

Peak bookings down

My Travel blamed its problems on the sharp reduction in world tourism following the 11 September terrorist attacks.

The company had been relying on an increase in bookings for summer holidays.

But it said that since Easter, it had seen a slowdown in family bookings for the peak summer holiday period.

The chief executive, Tim Byrne, said he thought a return to more normal trading and booking patterns, along with cost-cutting measures, would help the company to recover.

My Travel flies from 21 UK airports and plans to use some of its fleet to set up a low fares airline, and launch its own digital TV channel.