Zoom ceased all operations and filed for bankruptcy protection on August 28, 2008 because of its deteriorating financial position.[4] Zoom Airlines was organised as two units - Zoom Airlines Ltd., administered by PKF, and Zoom Airlines Inc with Doyle Salewski Inc as trustees.
Zoom Airlines Inc. was founded in May 2002 as a charter airline serving Go Travel Direct to the Caribbean, using aircraft from FirstAir and Monarch Airlines. It would later become a low-faretransatlantic airline. The carrier, based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa, was conceived by two Scottish brothers, John and Hugh Boyle, to fill an opportunity in the Canadian leisure travel market.
The brothers entered the holiday business in the 1980 with their startup companyFalcon Holidays in their native Scotland, which was later sold for a large profit to a major United Kingdom tour operator.
Their next venture, Direct Holidays, was started in 1991 and gained strength and market share in Scotland, becoming a household name and the largest 'direct sell' travel company in the UK.
After the sale of Direct Holidays in 1998 to MyTravel Group for £84m (C$200 million), Hugh relocated to Canada. Boyle started GO Travel Direct Vacations, introducing the 'direct sell' method. This business model eliminates the role of travel agents, passing the savings back to the holiday maker. In taking this business model one step further, Boyle launched Zoom Airlines, removing the remaining third parties from the booking process.
In November 2006, Zoom Airlines and Flyglobespan.com embarked on a codeshare agreement. Zoom Airlines operated two of three weekly Manchester to TorontoFlyglobespan flights. Zoom flights from Toronto to Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, London Gatwick, London Stansted and Manchester were available for booking on the Flyglobespan website, as well as Ottawa to London Gatwick. This agreement was only for the 2006/2007 winter season, as Flyglobespan subsequently commenced their own Canadian program.
In the summer of 2006, John Boyle founded a sister company in the UK known as Zoom Airlines Limited. It operated until 28 August 2008, when it ceased trading along with the original Canadian company.
On August 27, 2008, an aircraft leased to Zoom was grounded at Calgary International Airport when the owner cancelled the lease agreement. The fuel supplier would not refuel the aircraft due to outstanding debts.[5] Zoom subsequently announced it had requested creditor protection.[6]
Administration
On August 28, 2008, a Boeing 757 aircraft was held at Glasgow Airport because of the airline's financial difficulties. It was reported that the aircraft was impounded after the airline failed to pay its air traffic control charges. An aircraft at Cardiff Airport was also grounded as the aircraft being used to perform the flight had been impounded before scheduled take off.
Shortly afterwards, the airline announced that it had filed for administration[7] under the Canadian Companies Creditors Arrangement Act and that it was ceasing operations.
On the same day shortly after C-GZNA had departed London Gatwick for Bermuda/Fort Lauderdale under the command of Captain Tony Hampson and Senior First Officer Howard Barnard the company's sister airline filed for bankruptcy under the British legal system in August 2008. The company failed to hedge its pre-sold low cost service against globally rising fuel prices. Zoom Airlines is reported to have blamed the "horrendous" price of aviation fuel and the wider economic slowdown.[8]
Re-launch as XPO Airlines
On January 14, 2009, Globe Span Capital announced the acquisition of Zoom Airlines Inc. A plan was in place to get the new Zoom off the ground in early 2009. The Kingston, Ontario, based financial services company planned to relocate Zoom Airlines' finance, human resources and call-centre divisions to Kingston. The operation centre of the airline was to remain in Toronto.[9] On 25 March 2009, a website was launched for the new airline, XPO Airlines. The executives at Globe Span had planned to use the Zoom Airlines brand name, but chose to change to the name XPO, meaning Cross Pacific Ocean.[10]
In May 2009, XPO announced a planned focus on the Canada-Asia market with a revised launch date of late 2009 or early 2010.[11] However, by August 2010, the website was shut down and as of May 2020, the website, flyxpo.com is offline.[12] In February 2018, XPO Airlines was in advanced stages of talks with investors, hoping to raise a total of about $18,000,000 CAD by the end of the fiscal year of 2018.[13]
