NEWS
BRANSON EYES RENEWABLE FUEL:
energy. The entrepreneur, speaking at a press conference in Israel after a flight celebrating Virgin Atlantic’s new direct link between Heathrow and Tel Aviv, said the airline had been talking to companies about powering aircraft with green
which recycles steel and aluminium waste as jet fuel, is now certified
energy. Branson, pictured at Ben Gurion airport, said LanzaTech,
to power 50% of a Boeing 747’s fuel – and Boeing believes this can increase to 90%. “In the future we can get to a situation where people won’t have to feel guilty when they are flying,” he said.
Cook prompts ‘wholesale review’ of balance payments
Amie Keeley
Te Association of Atol Companies is launching a “wholesale review” into when customer money is collected by agents and passed on to suppliers in the wake of Tomas Cook’s collapse. Some operators lost
vast sums of money aſter it emerged Tomas Cook retail had taken full customer payments well in advance of departure and not passed them on, the AAC’s legal advisor, Alan Bowen, revealed. Bowen said the AAC was seting
up a commitee to examine financial protection for operators and was in talks with Abta and the CAA.
travelweekly.co.uk “We have a number of members
who have lost substantial amounts of money,” he said. “Now there is a view that it can’t
STORY TOP
continue as it has in the past. We were not aware what Cook was doing. It makes us all very wary. We can’t find ourselves in this situation again.” Last week, Travel Weekly
reported Tomas Cook had been
offering customers a 5% discount in August and September in return for full monies up front for holidays due to depart up to nine months later. Customer balances should be
collected about 16 weeks before departure and passed on to suppliers 13 weeks before, as per agency agreements. But Bowen claimed some
COLLAPSE
THOMAS COOK
customer payments were taken up to 18 months before departure, and this was happening “all year round”. He said he knew of one operator
that sold a £12,000 holiday departing next June through Cook. Te agency had collected the full amount but passed on only the £1,000 deposit. “Operators with bookings for 2020
assumed they would be losing the deposits of £150 to £200 per person, but have discovered customers paid thousands [up front],” he said. He warned operators might look to develop more direct-sell models
but added: “Tat’s not going to help anybody. We are going to have a wholesale review of how money is collected. We may have to move to weekly payments. “We have got to find a scheme
that protects the tour operator, but we also need some leeway that helps cashflow, otherwise everything will have to go through a trust. “We will look for a system that’s
simple and easy to operate, cheap and gives a guarantee to operators.” Bowen estimated the total loss
for all suppliers, including hoteliers, customers and the CAA, could run into billions of pounds. And he warned: “Tere is still the possibility of other failures. Te next Atol renewals [in March 2020] will be worse.”
31 OCTOBER 2019 5
Sir Richard Branson predicts the aviation sector will, in the future, be 100% fuelled by renewable
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