Legal challenge to tickets firm after airline collapse

An estimated 3,400 holidaymakers were left stranded in Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Egypt when Flyglobespan went into administration last month.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was appointed administrator on December 16.

It is understood that the legal application requests E-Clear is put into administration unless it can prove it has an estimated 35m reportedly owed to the collapsed travel firm.

Yesterday a spokesman for E-Clear told reporters the transactions company had asked for proof of the PwC claim that 35m is withheld, 20m of it for past flights, and that it had not received any.

After Flyglobespan went into administration E-Clear vowed it would work with the administrators to "clarify and address the various complexities around the airline's financial position, so that matters may be resolved as quickly as possible".

Following the collapse, Scotland's Finance Secretary John Swinney called for a probe into what happened.

A spokesman for Mr Swinney said last night: "This is a matter for the administrator, but we hope that it will lead to the recovery of the money which was due to Flyglobespan and the thousands of its customers affected by its collapse."