The ash cloud crisis that shut British airspace for six days in April should lead to a single consumer protection scheme, according to Advantage chief executive and Abta chairman John McEwan.
He said: “I would like to get to a point where there is a single scheme in of protection in place that covers consumers for refunds in the event of a failure and which covers consumers in the event that there is something that occurs whilst you are on holiday. I think consumers would willingly pay for that reassurance.”
McEwan joined voices that have suggested the government could use receipts from APD to cover such eventualities.
He said upcoming changes to the Package Travel Directive in Europe and in the UK following a Department for Transport consultation on Atol should clear up some of the grey areas.
But he said the industry needed to engage with the new Tory Lib Dem coalition government and the ministers responsible for the travel industry.
“The government’s point of view ultimately, I suspect, is that they do have a primary concern about repatriation and welfare of travellers because it’s not pleasant to see scenes of people sleeping in airports for days on end.
“The DfT consultation will come up with some recommendations to the government although I suspect the ash cloud situation has probably caused some extra thinking about how we deal with that in the future.
“The challenge as an industry is to make sure that the new minister for tourism role is one that fairly represents the total interests of the industry and not just domestic tourism.
“Domestic is important but it’s actually the contribution that the industry makes in terms of outbound tourism as well both in terms of taxation and employment and the way in which we can improve the economic environment of destination countries.”
McEwan branded the European denied boarding regulations under which European airlines had to compensate customers during the ash crisis as “onerous”. He added they were never meant to be applied in such occasions.
Abta has pointed out that in the first few weeks of the new government it has indicated it intends to pass more legislation to do with the travel industry than the banking industry, underlining the sector’s political importance.