1 October 2000

Airtours reported a surprise £20 million hole in their accounts on Friday, fuelling ongoing takeover speculation.

Britain's leading package holidays operator will make a loss of around £10m this year, than to a £100m loss from its German owned subsidiary Frosch Touristik.

Ironically another German company, C&N, is the most likely bidder for Airtours. As reported on Natives on 15 September, merger discussions have been running for some time.

Any merger of the two companies would continue the consolidation in the industry which saw Preussag outbid C&N and gain Thomson Travel for £1.8bn.