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Insurance warning in wake of airline collapse
Thursday, 04 Sep, 2009
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Travellers are being urged to double check their travel insurance policies in the wake of the failure of budget carrier Sky Europe.
The call came as it appeared that those who booked direct with the airline will have lost their money.
Others were left stranded overseas and had to pay several times their flight ticket cost to get back home.
Up to last week Sky Europe was sending e-flyers detailing an autumn sale for flights between €9-€99 guaranteed.
Online insurer www.ProtectMyHoliday.com advised that policies should be checked to ensure they include some type of financial protection against scheduled airline failure.
“It looks as though insurance is the only answer to consumers booking directly with airlines, either as a section on a retail travel insurance policy, or through a dedicated on-line solution such as ProtectMyHoliday where passengers can pick and choose their required cover for all of the component parts of their trip,” a spokesman said.
“It is anticipated that up to 60% of retail travel insurance policies will cover financial risk in some respect by the end of 2009 which is up from around 10%-15% at the start of the year.”
He noted comments made by EU foreign affairs commissioner Meglena Kuneva on a trip to Dublin last week who spoke of the need to address consumer protection.
The commissioner stated that the EU receives a “large number of complaints” about the holiday sector, and “it seems incomprehensible, when two people sitting next to each other on the same plane, even going to the same hotel, find that they have totally different levels of consumer protection simply because the bookings were made in different ways”.
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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