The organisation has moved into the next stage of making changes to the ATOL scheme by writing to more than 2,000 travel industry professionals proposing changes
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has warned that as many as nine million Britons could be travelling without the necessary insurance cover – and is calling for a review of the ATOL scheme that protects holidaymakers.
According to a report in today’s Financial Times, the CAA is concerned that more and more people are booking their holidays independently, and are therefore missing out on protection provided by the Air Travel Organisers Licencing (ATOL) insurance scheme, set up in 1972.
The FT reports that the organisation is specifically concerned about holidays booked through websites that are not covered by ATOL, and has launched an industry-wide review by writing to more than 2,000 travel industry professionals proposing changes.
Helen Simpson, of the CAA, is quoted by the Financial Times thus: “We are working with legislation that is 30 years old and it does not fit with the way some holidays are taken now. The proportion of leisure travel covered by ATOL had fallen from 98 per cent in the mid-1990s to about 75 per cent this year and nine million holidaymakers are not covered.”
