Three-quarters of the 65,000 guests who were still on their way via the bankrupt FTI have now returned home. There are currently around 15,000 guests still staying at the destinations. This was announced by the Deutsche Reisesicherungsfonds (DRSF), the German SGR, on Monday. A week after FTI Group filed for bankruptcy, the German travel insurance fund is drawing up its first interim balance. DRSF’s management is full of praise for the travel industry’s support in hosting and repatriating FTI guests. At the same time, the DRSF management is shocked by the way some hotels treat travelers. According to DRSF, there were cases where holidaymakers were not allowed to leave until they had paid the fare out of pocket. Others were denied access to their rooms or asked to make extra payments out of pocket in order to be allowed to continue their vacation. “With all understanding for the tense economic situation of local businesses in the holiday destinations, it is absolutely unacceptable to treat travelers in this way and to cross borders in the process,” says the DRSF management. According to German travel agencies, there are many cases, especially in Egypt, where hoteliers ask customers to pay again, but sometimes also in Turkey, the Maldives, the Canary Islands and other destinations. It was precisely in order to avoid such a situation that, after the bankruptcy filing, the DRSF had quickly sent declarations to travellers and hoteliers that the guarantee fund would take over the costs. At the time of FTI Group’s bankruptcy filing, on Monday 3 June, approximately 65,000 passengers were on the road to approximately 100 destinations. The focus was on the destinations Egypt, Greece, Spain and Turkey. Also read: Travel industry denounces traveler abuse by hoteliers after FTI bankruptcy (Photo: Shutterstock).
