Kiss Flights

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Kiss Flights: A Short, Simple Overview

What was Kiss Flights?
Kiss Flights was a private, seat-only charter tour operator based in London, England. It traded under the name Flight Options Ltd and sold flights to Spain (including Canary Islands), Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, and Turkey. The company stopped trading on 17 August 2010.

Origins and how it worked
- Kiss Flights began under a different name and was bought by Flight Options Ltd in January 2009 after XL Leisure Group collapsed.
- It was founded by Michael Smith and Paul Moss, who had previously worked at XL Airways UK (which also failed in 2008).
- Some flights were operated by Viking Airlines of Sweden.
- Kiss Flights was ATOL-protected (license No. 4233) through its parent company. The parent company started in 1995 and grew by acquiring other businesses.
- The Kiss Flights site started as a travel-agent portal and later allowed direct online bookings.
- At one point it could sell up to 168,700 seats under ATOL protection (through March 2011).

Cessation of operations
- On 17 August 2010, Flight Options Ltd announced it would cease trading at 5:00 pm BST.
- Up to 70,000 holidaymakers were affected, with about 13,000 customers abroad at the time.
- It was the third British travel company to fold that summer, after Goldtrail and Sun4U.
- The UK Civil Aviation Authority guaranteed outbound flights for the first 24 hours after the collapse to help customers.

Aftermath
News outlets reported on the closure, and Kiss Flights’ archived site remains as a record of what the company offered.