Kiss Flights was a charter, seat only tour operator

Tour operator

A tour operator typically combines tour and travel components to create a holiday. The most common example of a tour operator's product would be a flight on a charter airline plus a transfer from the airport to a hotel and the services of a local representative, all for one price. Niche tour...

 which ceased trading on 17 August 2010. Kiss Flights was a trading name for Flight Options Ltd, based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The company sold flights to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 (mainland and Canary Islands

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...

), Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

.

History

Originally trading under the name of Meridian Aviation UK Ltd, it was sold to Flight Options Ltd in January 2009 following the collapse of XL Leisure Group

XL Leisure Group

The XL Leisure Group was a major tour operating company in the UK, consisting of charter and scheduled airlines, holiday companies and flight-only tour operators. It also has operations in France, Germany, Ireland, Australia and Cyprus...

. It was founded by Michael Smith and Paul Moss, who had previously worked at failed tour operator XL Airways which also went into administration in September 2008. Some of their flights were operated by the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 airline Viking Airlines

Viking Airlines

Viking Airlines AB was a privately owned charter airline with a head office in Stockholm, Sweden and based in Stockholm. Viking Airlines primarily operated charter flights for European tour operators. The airline was established in 2003...

. The company was registered with ATOL

Atol

Atol may refer to:*Atol , a traditional cornstarch-based Central American hot drink*atol , a function in C programming language*Atol , a dual-panel file managerATOL may refer to:...

 (No.4233) through its parent company, Flight Options Ltd. The parent company was set up in 1995 and has bought a number of other companies. The website was originally only for travel agents, although it later became possible for the general public to directly book online. The company was licensed to sell 168,700 seats until March 2011 using ATOL protection.

Cessation of operations

On 17 August 2010 Flight Options Ltd announced that it would cease trading at 17:00 BST

British Summer Time

Western European Summer Time is a summer daylight saving time scheme, 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in the following places:* the Canary Islands* Portugal * Ireland...

. This led to initial uncertainty for up to 70,000 holidaymakers, with 13,000 of those abroad. It is the third British travel company to fold during the summer of 2010. Firstly Goldtrail

Goldtrail

Goldtrail was a UK based tour operator that specialised in operated flights and holidays to Turkey and Greece.The company also trades under the names of Goldtrail Holidays, Goldtrail Travel and Sunmar.It collapsed in 2010 and went into administration...

 collapsed on 17 July 2010, then Sun4U

Sun4u

Sun4u may refer to* Sun-4, an architecture used in workstations and servers* Sun4U, a collapsed British holiday firm...

on 13 August 2010. Due to the timing at the height of the summer season the CAA even guaranteed outbound flights for the first 24 hours after the collapse.