Grounded: XL Airways

XL Airways & The XL Leisure Group imploded spectacularly on 11th September 2008, they had become the UK's third largest travel company and its collapsed caused nearly 2000 staff to lose their jobs. The company started as Sabre Airways and in 2001 re-branded as Excel Airways, they were acquired by Air Atlanta Icelandic and eventually sold as part of a Management Buyout and re-branded as XL Airways. This episode looks at the company following the MBO up to the companies demise and looks at the reasons why such a large company could collapse the way it did, the largest UK airline failure since Court Line in the 1970s & Air Europe in 1991. If you want to go through the full history of Excel Airways / XL Airways I recommend starting with the episode on Ambassador Airways which leads in to Peach Air followed by Sabre Airways... Episode 3: Ambassador Airways    • Grounded: Ambassador Airways   Episode 4: Peach Air    • Grounded: Peach Air   Episode 5: Sabre Airways    • Grounded: Sabre Airways   Episode 6: Excel Airways    • Grounded: Excel Airways   If you are interested in my own personal experience as cabin crew / flight attendant with XL on their final hours then check out this video;    • Video   I hope you are all enjoying the "Grounded" series, there are plenty more episodes coming up soon after this whole XL Airways story has been wrapped up. Let me know what you think of the series so far as well as suggestions as to what I could do better or even suggest airlines to cover in future episodes. If you liked this and want to see more then Subscribe to keep up to date with the latest episodes. We now have a website! https://www.expo-aviation.com/ We're on Facebook!   / expoaviation