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Greek OTA Tripsta/airtickets Temporarily Suspends Operations

Greek online travel agent Tripsta/airtickets on Thursday, June 28, announced that it is temporarily suspending the issuance of new airline tickets.

Over the last few months the OTA had gained the international status of one of the biggest players in the online air ticketing market. Recent figures showed that the OTA had reached a production of over 35 percent of all Greek BSP (Billing Settlement Plan) sales, reaching a year-over-year increase in monthly sales of over 150 percent.

However, in today’s announcement, Tripsta/airtickets says that “a massive liquidity problem” has made it “impossible to continue functioning properly” and fulfill its obligations to airline companies.

According to sources, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) had recently claimed that Tripsta failed to meet the deadlines of their remittance obligations for the sales of the month of May – owing 69 million euros to the BSP.

IATA, in order to not place Tripsta/airtickets under default, limited the OTAs sales to credit cards only (since early June). It had came to a “repayment agreement” with the OTA that included monthly installments to pay off the debt until the end of 2020.

At the same time, all airlines were closely monitoring the situation. According to market sources, some airlines had decided to eliminate further risk by terminating ticketing access to the Tripsta/airtickets, which resulted to limited sales and thus lesser revenue.

According to Tripsta/airtickets, its current financial state is due to “unfair and aggressive behavior” of “certain partners and multinational global distribution systems”. The company noted that it intends to take legal actions “to seek justice for this unethical situation”.

Moreover, the OTA has assured that the websites of Tripsta and airtickets will continue to work properly and consumers that have purchased air tickets through the platforms will not face any problems.

The announcement by Tripsta/airtickets follows the 2014 closing of airfasttickets, another major OTA in the Greek market, which seized operations due to a debt of millions of euros to airline companies.

Tripsta SA, which also operates the travelplanet24 brand, merged with airtickets in 2015 in an aim to become the largest OTA in South East Europe and Greece’s largest travel company.

In regards to the financial difficulties of Tripsta/airtickets, Aegean Airlines S.A., parent company to airlines AEGEAN and Olympic Air, said that “total group exposure today is estimated at an amount no higher than 400,000 euros”.

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About the Author
Nikos is Greek-American born in New York, USA, and has lived in Greece for over 30 years. He is the managing editor of Greece's leading monthly travel and tourism guide, the Greek Travel Pages (GTP) since June 2008 and of news site GTP Headlines since its launch in September 2012. Nikos has also served as international press officer for the City of Athens and for the mayor. He has a degree in Mass Media and Communications, specializing in Journalism. Nikos is a native English speaker and speaks Greek fluently.
  1. V.V. Reply

    My KLM flight was cancelled on 25 May 2018. KLM asks me to contact airtickets to get a refund, but I have received no reply from Airtickets to any of my 5 emails to claim refund of my cancelled flight. Who do I need to contact to get my money back?

    • Omer Khalid Reply

      you will call your bank and ask to dispute the amount as a fraud

  2. REMYA Reply

    Three weeks before I have cancelled my ticket and we try to contact the respective airline for refund. They ask me to contact the respective Tripsta agency for refund. I have send several email none of them replied. Could you please to whom we need to contact.

  3. Marilyn Salmon Reply

    We were emailed by Tripsta on 28 June 2018 to say that they were processing a full refund of nearly $2,800 AUD to our credit card, but to date we have not received it. On a search today for information, I found this article. Now I’m afraid they’ve cancelled our flights and kept our refund. Has anyone had any success contacting Tripsta or receiving a refund? I feel very helpless and frustrated.

  4. Omar baha Reply

    The same happened to me, I booked a ticket since 3 months and they have sent me an email stating that there due to technical issues the flight is cancelled, without being refunded I don’t know what to do, we must join forces, I’m from morocco do you know how we can open a dispute from here ?

    • Anne Reply

      Hi Remya, The same thing happened to me with 3 flights that I had to cancel for medical reason. The airline doesn’t want to know anything and sent me to Tripsta. Did you get anything?

  5. Santhosh Reply

    “consumers that have purchased air tickets through the platforms will not face any problems”
    This is not true as they cancelled by tickets purchased 2 months ago in the last one week and the airline confirmed that they have refunded the money to Tripsta. Apart from an emal saying your tickets are cancelled, there is no news from TRIPSTA and now have to pay 50% more to get the same tickets elsewhere.

    To contact IATA you need a 7 digit travel agent code and the IATA code on original ticket provided by Tripsta is 8 digit invalid code.

  6. kaushal Reply

    “TRIPSTA”which is a Greece based online travel agency company has duped me and many other passengers by cancelling my booking without my knowledge and without refunding. Passengers reviews can be seen here “https://www.trustpilot.com/review/tripsta.co.uk”
    Airlines have stopped communicating with this agent since past many days, because of its fraudulent practices of not keeping up to its commitments towards the customers.
    I want GTP to make a full story on TRIPSTA and make public aware of its malpractices. Hope others do not loose money.

  7. Meriem Bouziane Reply

    I have booked beginning of June 2 tickets with Tripsta.
    I called yesterday the flight company to have some additional details about the flight (Emirates), i has been informed that my tickets has been refunded to the Agency beginnig of July! we have tried several times to reach Tripsta (mail, phone, Facebook), but no answer.
    I had to buy other tickets today and i now am starting a process to bring the company to justice.
    Regards

  8. GTP editing team Reply

    Dear readers,

    As mentioned in the article, airtickets/Tripsta has temporarily suspended operations.

    The company’s operating cash flow is not sufficient to continue with their business and they owe airline companies more than 60 million euros. On June 29th Airtickets/Tripsta dismissed a large number of employees (apx 140), keeping only 40 people to serve their very large clientele with refunds and reissues only.

    airtickets/Tripsta have assured that their websites are working properly and that consumers that have purchased air tickets through the platforms will not face any problems.
    The contact numbers in Greece for airtickets/Tripsta are (+30) 2106074000 & (+30) 2111079799.

    Until today, there has not been any further update nor has there been any news of the company seizing operations completely.

    Furthermore, it may also be a good idea to inform the IATA, the worldwide organization in charge for such kind of issues http://www.iata.org/customer-portal/Pages/index.aspx, as well as your country’s passenger’s rights organization. It may also be useful to check the https://www.airhelp.com/en for additional information on such situations.

    Please know that GTP Headlines is monitoring the situation and will publish all updates that come about.

    Kind regards to all.

    The GTP editing team

  9. Elle Reply

    Many people including my mother are experiencing problems with this company.
    Can anyone supply any evidence that this company has seised or suspended as it would really help.
    Or if it would be possible for this author to contact me with any information he may have found whilst investigating it?
    Many thanks
    Elle
    UK

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