CRISIS-TORN MyTravel Group was today meeting its major bankers in a bid to rid itself of a £800million debt mountain.

The company wants to swap its debts for new shares, leaving banks and other financial institutions firmly in the driving seat.

Under the restructuring plan, the banks would have 88 per cent of the MyTravel shares, bondholders eight per cent and existing shareholders would be left with just four per cent of the company.

In its announcement to the Stock Exchange, the company - which employs more than 300 people in Accrington and Helmshore - also said its operating result for the year to September 30 2004 would be "around break-even".

After the company lost £900 million in 2003, that represents a major achievement for a business that has been battered with boardroom upheaval, an accounting 'black hole' and a mounting debt crisis.

The list of reasons for MyTravel's plunge to a near £1billion loss stretches beyond just September 11, the Iraq war and accounting problems.

According to analysts in the City, Manchester-based MyTravel had been heading for a fall because of a string of acquisitions made in the 1990s when it was still known as Airtours.

From travel agents to hotels and airlines to cruise ships, the company became too big to cope with any slowdown in bookings, and too slow to respond to changes in customer tastes, they said.

MyTravel began life as Airtours in 1972 when founder David Crossland bought two Lancashire travel agencies, taking its name from its next acquisition A.I.R. Tours, named after the business's former owners Albert and Ivy Roberts. It floated on the Stock Exchange in 1987.