business Essential news, comment and analysis Stephen Mason: ‘The CAA


wants new civil enforcement powers. It’s a CAA power grab – it will give them extensive new powers’


Travel lawyer picks holes in new Atol regulations


Stephen Mason highlights a host of questions about CAA’s new rules and accuses it of a ‘power grab’. Ian Taylor reports


Leading industry lawyer Stephen Mason has highlighted a series of questions on amended Atol rules about to come into force alongside new Package Travel Regulations and accused the CAA of “a power grab” in its proposals for further changes.


Both the package and Atol


regulations are expected to be published within days and come into force from July. Mason, senior partner at Travlaw,


told an Abta travel law seminar in London last week: “We are in the territory of known unknowns.”


64 travelweekly.co.uk 31 May 2018 He said: “If you are a package


organiser selling flight-based packages, not much has changed. “If you sell as an agent for the consumer, you will no longer be able to escape Atol – that is a significant change.” From July 1, he added: “If you


are an organiser established in the UK, you can use your Atol if you have one to sell to consumers throughout the EEA [European Economic Area].” But Mason said: “There are


some questions about that. Will it be £2.50 per seat [for the Atol


Protection Contribution on sales outside the UK]? “What about the [CAA’s] financial fitness test? What about the rebate arrangements? Not everyone pays £2.50 now. There are special arrangements with the likes of the Travel Trust Association. We don’t know whether that will continue for those selling overseas. “There is a phrase in the draft


[Atol] regulations that might cover price comparison sites if they ‘facilitate flight accommodation on behalf of another person’. That might bring them within the regulations.” Mason noted the CAA proposes three types of Atol certificate to


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