Due to immense pressure from airline providers, the coalition Government is looking to revive plans that were scrapped by the previous labour government, in order to protect the consumer.
This protection refers to the nature of compensating travellers who are victims of holiday providers’ who have gone bust. At the moment, the current plan known as the Air Travel Operators Licensing plan (ATOL) plan only compensates those who bought a package holiday.
Some of you may remember the recent incident of Goldtrail Holidays going bust. A significant number of passengers were left without compensation due to the fact that they had bought only air flights from the company and not a complete package. The suggestions made by the airline providers of today are attempts to remedy this situation.
It is not usually for families to have a ‘do-it-yourself’ holiday, by booking various services and products through different providers. And it is these holiday-makers that are suffering and paying the ultimate price.
Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, was very clear on the Government’s stance towards the ATOL plan.
“We clearly have a problem with the ATOL plan”, he remarked.
“Over the last few years the way in which people buy holidays has changed,” he said.
“The use of the Internet, the use of a much more à la carte approach to purchasing flights and accommodation has made the clear distinct between what is a package holiday and what is not a package holiday much less clear”.
There is of course the option of extending the current ATOL plan so that plane tickets would be covered.
But other suggestions have been made by the Civil Aviation Authority under the previous Labour Government. This includes the idea of adding a levy to plane tickets of £1. This levy would then be used to compensate those who are victims to airline collapse. But this levy would only apply to those passengers that bought tickets in the United Kingdom.
Goldtrail is not the only provider to cause holiday chaos. Zoom, XL, Maxjet, Silverjet and Eos are all airlines that have collapsed in the past decade. This combined with the fact that a staggering 200 million Britain fly abroad each year means that this is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed.
“We believe there is a need for a universal plan which would include protection for when a scheduled airline went bust. A levy would be the most practical way of doing this.” Says the Air Transport Users Council.
“Our own research has shown that less than a third of passengers even know they have any protection or not.
“It can lead to a pretty unpleasant shock and a hefty bill for a passenger when an airline fails.
“In the past when a carrier has failed, airlines have offered ‘special repatriation’ fares, but there is no guarantee they will next time.”
But not everyone is onboard. British Airways has condemned the proposed levy.
"We would resist any move to be included in such a plan as charging passengers an additional fee will put up prices for everyone to protect the minority affected by scheduled airline failure," a spokesman said.
"We are a well established airline and it would be unfair if our customers had to fund compensation for those who choose to travel on less established airlines.
"Due to our passenger numbers, our customers would pay a considerable share of the funding to provide protection against other airlines' bankruptcy."
Antonia Torr is a graduate from the University of Leicester, with a degree in Law with European Union Law. Having enjoyed writing from a young age, Antonia has received numerous awards that act as a testament to her quality of writing. For
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