While the collapse of Britain’s third largest tour operator XL leisure may have left tens of thousands of UK travellers stranded overseas, and could lead to the collapse of other smaller operators, there are some winners.

This morning, the Civil Aviation Authority said as many as 85,000 travellers may be stuck overseas. An additional 200,000 advanced bookings had been made with XL's group of travel companies, which have now gone into administration.

And Landsbanki analysts said XL also provided flights for other operators and therefore the group's collapse could have a domino effect on other smaller tour operators, reinforcing the supply cuts.

But they said this has an obvious benefit to the remaining players.

While Landsbanski’s analysts said today's news does highlight the obvious challenges from falling consumer demand and rising fuel costs facing the industry, they said it will also result in a further material cut in industry capacity - which is good news for other operators. 

They pointed out there was a similar situation in the early 1990's when International Leisure Group collapsed.

'In the years following the collapse, Airtours grew profits throughout the economic downturn and its share price materially outperformed,' they said.

They believe supply will fall by more than industry demand and the two giants will prosper while smaller operators go bust or materially cut back capacity as they lack the necessary critical mass.