The failure of Lowcost Travel Group has stirred opinion on the speed at which the UK should implement the new Package Travel Directive
NEWS 4
Ian Taylor
ian.taylor@travelweekly.co.uk
Abta has dismissed calls for the government to hold back on implementing the new Package Travel Directive.
Head of financial protection
John de Vial said a delay would be “a disservice to the industry”, although he expressed sympathy with the Association of Atol Companies’ (AAC) demand for a curb on the right of EU holiday firms outside the UK to sell in Britain without an Atol. The AAC called on the govern-
ment “not to permit any business trading in the UK to sell without an Atol” following the collapse of
5
PTD delay would be ‘a disservice’
Lowcost Travel Group in July. De Vial told Travel Weekly:
“Not implementing the directive would be a mistake. The industry wants certainty.” The directive is due to come
into force in 2018, a year before the earliest date Britain could leave the EU. De Vial said: “The idea we
would not be ready would be wrong. It would be a disservice to the industry. When we talked to our members about Brexit, they did not want to change much of the PTD. The fundamentals of package travel protection have not changed since the 1960s. The UK will have to comply on time. It would be mad not to be ready.” The Department for Business
has promised a consultation on new Package Travel Regulations – the UK rules that will usher in the new directive – by the end of the year. De Vial said: “The timing is
tight, but the government does seem to be getting on with it. “We’ve lost a few months, but
I don’t think it’s a fundamental problem.” He suggested the collapse of
John de Vial: ‘Industry is ready to implement PTD’
Lowcost and its Majorca-based online agency Lowcost Holidays, which traded without Atol protection, “could make a lot of people think more cautiously”.
6
travelweekly.co.uk 18 August 2016
‘The trade needs a period of calm’
Lee Hayhurst
lee.hayhurst@travelweekly.co.uk
The Travel Network Group has demanded a period of calm and reassessment before new EU package rules are brought in following Lowcost Travel Group’s collapse.
Gary Lewis, managing director What is the new PTD?
The new Package Travel Directive will bring most online sales of holidays within the definition of a package, while agents who put together a flight and a hotel, for example, will also have the same responsibilities as traditional package holiday organisers. Responsibility for regulation will be moved from the country where a holiday is sold to where the holiday firm is “established”.
of the consortium, has added his voice to concerns about the revised Package Travel Directive (PTD), which would allow firms to operate under other EU financial protection regimes. The
government has confirmed it will
implement the new PTD ahead of Brexit, but an original timetable has already slipped, with consultations not due to start until late autumn [Travel Weekly, July 28]. Lowcost left the UK’s Atol
scheme in 2013 to operate under a less onerous Balearics regime, a move that has left tens of thousands of direct Lowcost Holidays customers with scant hope of compensation. Lewis said the Atol system
added the Flight-Plus category just four years ago and that there needed to be “a period of calm” rather than more change. He said the Lowcost failure
showed what could happen to customers travelling with firms without Atol protection.
Gary Lewis: ‘The status quo is not doing badly’
“Atol has done some remarkable
things,” he added. “It has solved the shortfall in the Air Travel Trust and allowed [the CAA to promote] a full Atol message [about the protection provided by package holidays].” “The status quo has been
robustly tested and it feels like it’s not doing badly.” Lewis is concerned the new
PTD will undermine existing regulations that meet the requirements of the UK travel market, one of Europe’s most complex and developed. He said although he voted
Remain, his personal experience of how Europe handled PTD reform
was enough to consider Brexit. › Lowcost fallout, back 64
YOU NEED TO KNOW
5 STORIES HOT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
