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Zoom Airlines said Thursday that it has halted flights and grounded its planes, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and tempers flaring at airports.
“We deeply regret the fact that we have been forced to cease all Zoom operations. It is a tragic day for our passengers and more than 600 staff,” Zoom co-founders Hugh and John Boyle said in a statement. “We are desperately sorry for the inconvenience that this will cause passengers and those who have booked flights.”
The Ottawa-based carrier took down its website Thursday afternoon, preventing consumers from making online bookings. Earlier in the day, a Zoom sales agent said bookings were still being accepted in the morning, despite dozens of travellers being stranded on various flights.
“We have done everything we can to support the airline and left no stone unturned to secure a refinancing package that would have kept our aircraft flying. Even as late as yesterday we had secured a new investment package but the actions of creditors meant we could not continue flying,” the Boyle brothers said.
A Zoom Airlines Boeing 767 jetliner lands in Calgary in this file photo. (Larry MacDougal for The Globe and Mail)
The suspension of online advance bookings followed a Thursday morning statement from Hugh Boyle, who had hoped to keep the airline's network of routes operating without disruption in Canada, Britain and the United States.
Zoom's British and Canadian operations “have sought creditor protection by filing legal notices of intention to appoint an administrator in both the U.K. and Canada,” Mr. Boyle said in the earlier statement, later superseded by Zoom's shutdown.
Zoom confirmed that it had “experienced operational difficulties” on Wednesday in Calgary, affecting 69 travellers.
“We have just had to book three tickets through Toronto on Air Canada and British Airways at great expense,” said one angry consumer in Ottawa. “No offers of future flights, compensation or alternate arrangements were offered.”
Sky-high fuel prices have left Zoom in a cash crunch, and the company is trying to get a financing done to stay alive, a person familiar with the development said. The six-year-old carrier needs €30-million ($46.3-million) – to keep its planes aloft, the source said.
Steve Hodgetts, an official at Cardiff International Airport in Wales, said about 67 passengers were already aboard a flight scheduled to fly to Vancouver via Belfast on Thursday afternoon when the airline decided to pull the plug.
He said some of the passengers were Canadians, and that many quickly booked flights home to Canada on other airlines.
“We knew that they were in administration protection, but on that basis, as far as we were aware from our legal advice, the aircraft could operate. The airline chose not to operate the flight,” he said.
At Glasgow International Airport in Scotland, about 350 passengers were stranded by Zoom when two flights were cancelled Thursday.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said most of the Montreal-based carrier's flights will be packed over the coming days, but the airline will do its best to accommodate Zoom customers on a first-come, first-served basis. “Air Canada has made available special, low fares on a one-way basis to assist stranded Zoom Airlines customers who were planning to travel between Canada and France, the United Kingdom and Italy,” he said.
With a file from Boyd Erman
