The Civil Aviation Authority has put out a plea to small and medium sized travel businesses to engage with the regulatory body in ongoing dialogue.
Speaking during a panel debate at this year’s Aito Overseas Conference 2022, CAA head of operations, aviation and travel Michael Budge said the authority was keen to hold more conversations with smaller tour operators.
He encouraged operators to engage with the CAA during the year, not just during the annual Atol renewal process.
He said: “We want to engage with SMEs. We don’t want to be seen as a regulatory body that only engages with large businesses.
“For us it’s important to have that connection and not be seen as a once a year renewal; let’s have that dialogue during the year.”
Budge said this September’s Atol renewal process had gone “relatively smoothly” in contrast with previous renewals.
“We did actually see a better level of information as people were seeking to better understand their businesses; it made it easier for us,” he said, but he admitted there had been “challenging conversations”.
“There is debt sitting on balance sheets, absolutely. That will place challenges on businesses,” he added.
Referring to the CAA’s Atol Reform consultation, Budge said the CAA planned to publish a document “very shortly”.
The CAA’s Atol Reform consultation in April 2021 proposed sweeping changes to the regime, limiting use of customer money for advance payments to suppliers and introducing ‘risk pricing’ via a variable APC. Options for protecting customer money included total or partial segregation in trust or escrow accounts, a return of universal bonding or a combination.
The consultation sparked a record 300-plus industry responses, and the CAA’s summary of these, published in May, made clear most were firmly against a one-size-fits-all approach and compulsory segregation of funds.
Budge admitted the “polarisation of comments” had made it “pretty difficult”.
“Moving forward what we have done is use the benefit of additional time to think about it and we aim to publish a document very shortly,” he said. “That will set out a clearer direction on travel and we will be asking for feedback to that and looking for comments on our preliminary findings based on our work behind the scenes.”