Abta is in talks with the Civil Aviation Authority to allow it to hold one agency agreement on behalf of all its members.
Abta chairman Noel Josephides (pictured) said the move to change the current situation followed feedback from members over problems claiming refunds after tour operator failures.
Currently, each agency or consortium must by law hold an Agency Agreement with each of the operators it deals with for Atol sales.
Josephides said: “The trouble is the Agency Agreement changes on a fairly regular basis. If the CAA discovers a loophole in European Union law then the agreement changes. It causes a lot of a hassle.
“But if the tour operator fails and the agent doesn’t have the latest agreement in place then it will not get the money it is owed from the CAA.”
He admitted it had not yet been established whether such a change would be lawful.
He added: “It’s a very delicate subject because we don’t know the legal implications; that’s what we’re exploring.
“We have no guarantee it’s legally possible but it would help everybody. We want to try to simplify the whole process to save everybody a lot of bureaucracy.”
He cited examples of Agency Agreements, introduced in 2012, not being valid because they were not signed or did not have the correct date on them.
Already the agreements have been modified twice since they were introduced, he added.
Last year the CAA admitted customer refunds had been withheld from some travel agents following operator failures such as Villa Parade and Longwood Holidays because the agreements were not up to date.
Speaking at the 2014 Aito Agents conference in Prague, CAA head of Atol Andy Cohen said at least one large agency had been forced to pay out a “lot of money” to clients , instead of the CAA, because it did not have an Agency Agreement in place when the operator failed.
Abta members were issued reminders last year to ensure their agreements were dated and incorporated new wording from October 1, 2014. Without the up-to-date terms they were told clients’ Atol claims would be refused if the Atol holder failed.