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.”

Over the weekend, there has been lots of coverage of Goldtrail, the plight of those abroad and the efforts by the CAA to get them home. Holidaymakers affected are quoted as saying things like they are angry, everything was fine when they checked the website, why wasn’t there some notice and so on. Because Goldtrail had appeared on BBC’s Watchdog programme last year, some holidaymakers have suggested the writing was on the wall for the company then. The same program said that ABTA had fined them. Barrhead Travel in Scotland said that they didn’t sell Goldtrail holidays unless someone came in to their travel agencies and deliberately asked for one, suggesting they were concerned about the company.
So how can the holidaymaker know the company they have bought a holiday from is safe?

The answer is that they can’t. But there are some ways that might help.

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.

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.

A couple of weeks ago another airline company went bust. Sky Europe only flew out of two UK airports so you can be forgiven for thinking it is of little consequence. But it follows in the wake of others including XL and Zoom which has a much bigger impact. After those collapses as well there were calls for a tightening up of customer protection and nothing happened. In fairness Ryanair and easyjet offered special fares to help passengers return home which neither of them needed to do.