After the collapse of Blue Skies Destinations, (yesterday) Goldtrail, Flight Options (the owners of Kiss) and Sun4You in almost as many weeks and following on XL, Globespan and Libra, one of the common questions is can I trust my tour operator to still be around when I go on holiday? Who should I book with? Does anyone offer full protection?
As with most things in this world nothing is certain but here are some thoughts.

What is the purpose of an airport regulator?
To make money? To manage the interests of our airports? Or the airlines? To control over-zealous ideas and practices? To make sure passengers fly safely?
I sometimes wonder.
Yesterday the Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, announced that he was giving additional powers to the Civil Aviation Authority. (CAA) But this time the power is to look out for the passenger. Hammond said, “…the CAA’s primary duty will be to promote the interests of existing and future passengers.”

With decent weather over much of our countries last weekend it looked as though things were set fare for a while. In the space of one week, we have had winds and heavy rain and then, to top it off, Goldtrail Holidays (which also used the name Sunmar) went bust yesterday evening leaving 16,000 abroad. Now it also seems that there may be a strike at all BAA airports (Heathrow, Stanstead, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen) during August.
CD-Traveller has frequently argued for wider consumer protection. In the wake of Globespan in 2009 and XL in 2008 (see CD-Traveller 14 Sept, 26 Nov, 17 Dec 2009), you might have hoped or expected that such high profile events might have stimulated some change. No, the EU prepared a document and sent it for consultation. The then government said it was an EU issue and we are no further forward. Yet we have had 11 cases of companies going bust this year.

Regular readers can stop reading right now if they don’t want to hear me talk again about providing an adequate safety net for passengers outside the ATOL bonding scheme.

As you probably all know by now, those passengers who bought a package holiday under the Globespan name are probably protected under the ATOL system. Those of you who bought just a flight with a credit card (not a debit card)and paid more than £100 may be able to claim a refund from the credit card providers. The rest of you, I’m afraid, will probably be out of pocket. And for those of you who are covered then you still have the hassle and probable expense of rebooking with another carrier if there is availability. To check your position, see www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1985&pagetype=90.

The collapse of the Globespan group will hit Scotland particularly badly.

In Ireland, Budget Travel is the tour operator. At one point, it carried over a third of all Irish holidaymakers who went abroad which probably amounted to over 400,000 people per year. On Wednesday evening they called in the liquidators.

As in the UK, there is a bonding system operated by the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) so most, if not all of the money put down by holidaymakers will be protected.

Those of you who have paid deposits or have fully paid need to download an 8 page claim form which can be found at www.aviationnreg.ie. On the website, click on the release about Budget Travel and the click on claim.

Starting today, the EU will consult with the travel industry over the next 8 weeks before coming up with new proposals on giving greater protection to travellers.

A spokesman from TUI (the owners of Thomson and First Choice) said this week that if a bird swims, quacks, waddles and looks like a duck then it must be a duck. The courts think otherwise. Most of you will never have heard of a company called Travel Republic but the result of a court action against it by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) might actually help travellers with better consumer protection for our flights and holidays.

From tomorrow, 1st November, EU regulations come into place banning hiding taxes and extra charges when they advertise their flights. Theorectically if a flight is advertised at £1 that is what it should cost you. In practice I suspect that won’t happen due to choices that you will have to opt-out of such as [...]