Keeping you abreast of what's going on in the
Japanese travel and tourism industries.
News consolidated by Travel Vision, Inc. updated every week.
Temporary Closedown of Going Co. Leaves 240 Travelers Stranded
Because of Denied Boarding despite Possession of e-Ticket Copies Mid-February, 2008
Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) announced that there
were incidences in which travelers who had bought e-tickets from
Going Co. - a travel agency of Category-One License that suspended
business on February 1 - were denied boarding at airports.
No official paper is submitted yet from the agency to disclose
creditors but it made a verbal report that there were about 240
creditors (travelers) with assumed total debts of 40 million yen.
JATA received about 100 enquiries up to now including those that want
merely to ascertain Going's business closedown. It is feared,
however, that similar cases will follow sooner or later.
Going is a non-IATA agency and buys air tickets from ticket
wholesalers for resale. It appears that a wholesaler, who was afraid
of the agency's default in the payment of sales proceeds, cancelled
the reservation on its own and thereby airlines denied boarding.
JATA started to give an advice to consumers who made a complaint
so that they file their grievance to make a claim for a refund. They
have to submit an application paper with a copy of e-ticket attached.
After these papers are sent in, it will become possible to determine
who the wholesaler and airlines in question were.
There were some wholesalers and airlines on the other hand that
performed business as usual despite the outstanding collections. When
they are counted in to the above creditors, total liabilities of
Going are likely to swell considerably.