Bird & Bird has been handed a lead role on the administration of tour operator Holidays 4 UK.

The Brighton-based travel company, which has more than 12,000 customers currently abroad, went into administration today (3 August), with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) appointed to oversee the process.

PwC has turned to Bird & Bird for insolvency advice, with the firm fielding a team led by joint international corporate restructuring and insolvency head Brett Israel.

Israel has previously worked on the high-profile collapses of BCCI, British and Commonwealth Holdings and Parmalat.

Holidays 4 UK, which also traded as Aegean Flights, has suffered due of the difficulties faced by the travel industry following the economic downturn. Most of the company's 18 staff have been made redundant.

The administration will affect about 12,000 holidaymakers who are currently abroad, as well as thousands more who were due to travel with the company later this summer. PwC said that the Civil Aviation Authority would be responsible for getting those people home who had booked flights as part of a package holiday.

Passengers may be reimbursed for package holidays they have yet to take through the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing scheme, of which Holidays 4 UK was a member.

The role for Bird & Bird comes after SNR Denton took the lead for KPMG on the administration of 64-year-old British holiday company Pontin's in November last year.