The Civil Aviation Authority is being urged to put its ‘rebalancing Atol’ consultation on hold until next year.
Abta says the regulator should wait until the outcome of European reforms to the Package Travel Directive and a Department for Transport review of the Atol process and its financing.
“Abta is calling on the CAA to place on hold its own reform of the Atol system until those processes conclude next year,” the association said.
“There are, for example, over 900 businesses that would be impacted by the proposed removal of the Small Business Atol scheme – nearly half of all Atol holders – meaning the changes proposed are not matters of routine management of the Atol scheme – they are fundamental and go to the heart of the issues under consideration by the DfT,” Abta said.
A revised Package Travel Directive is expected in spring or summer of 2015 and “given the potential for significant subsequent changes,” the correct thing for the CAA to do is to review the implementation of Atol after the current DfT review processes are complete.
“More broadly we also strongly believe that change should take shape in a way that does not act as a barrier to micro businesses and SMEs but provides a fair and proportionate approach that is suitable for all business models,” Abta added.
“The current proposals represent a very significant increase in barriers to entry.
“Abta calls on the CAA to pause its consultation process and to align it to the timeline of the DfT, to follow the conclusion of BIS/European process in the first half of 2015.
“Meanwhile, Abta will continue to engage with the CAA, DfT and Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), and with our members, on Atol reform and the future of package travel regulation.”
Abta says it supports the need to reform the Atol regime in order to ensure that it is an “effective, sustainable, and proportionate scheme” as future changes will be important to providing adequate and robust consumer protection.