The sad but not unexpected demise of Allbury Travel Group yesterday marks the end of an era. Established brands such as Libra Holidays, Argo Holidays and Jetlife have been a consistent feature of the UK travel industry for 35 years or more.
The Greek and Cypriot marketplace was thriving and successful throughout the eighties and nineties, supporting some sizeable independent tour operators – Libra, Argo, Golden Sun, Kosmar etc. Now only Olympic remains.
This sums up the changing face of the UK travel industry, where the big two get larger and stronger due to their size, listed presence and in my opinion grossly unfair regulatory advantage and where the “independent traveller” rules.
Earlier this week we also saw the demise of Globespan Group. A clear link between the two entities is the role of the credit card clearer E-clear, which also cleared for a variety of other failed operators, amongst them XL, Zoom Flights and Sky Europe.
One would think that the section 75 Consumer Credit Card Act 1974 chargeback claims must have been in aggregate huge. It has widely been reported that the owner of E-clear is also the major shareholder of Allbury.
These failures put into stark contrast the recent government consultation paper ‘Travel company failures: financial protection for air passengers’. Allbury passengers should in the main all be protected by the ATOL Scheme – there are only 100 or so passengers abroad and 4,000 or so advanced bookings – but all of the Globespan passengers will not be similarly covered.
Has this been addressed by the consultation paper? No. The consultation, while necessarily and sensibly dealing with the “travel plus” scenario, still reflects the government’s refusal to protect passengers who book direct with scheduled airlines but proposes additional burden on travel agents who sell scheduled flight only to consumers.
by White Hart Associates partner Chris Photi