The CAA has confirmed the renewal of 522 Atol licences at the end of March, taking the total number of Atol holders to 1,619.
A further 17 Atol renewals remain in the application process from the 660 licences which expired on March 31.
The number of renewals was down from 594 in March 2022 and 704 in March 2020. However, more than 200 Atol holders chose not to renew at the March renewals of 2020-22.
The CAA published a list of 42 licence holders which had “not applied to renew” their Atols, “choosen not to renew” or been “invited to renew and subsequent to that ceased trading or applied to revoke their licences early”.
The regulator confirmed Jet2holidays, Tui UK, Loveholidays, On the Beach and Booking.com make up the current top-five licence holders.
Jet2holidays overtook Tui as the UK’s largest tour operator in February when it increased its Atol licence by more than 500,000 passengers.
Neither Jet2holidays nor Tui were required to renew their licences in March.
CAA head of Atol Michael Budge said: “Companies renewing their licence in March have revealed they anticipate passenger demand will continue to grow over the next 12 months and our latest figures seem to indicate that the travel sector is slowly moving in the right direction again.”
However, Budge suggested: “Household budgets will continue to feel the squeeze in the coming months, which means it is more important than ever for consumers to protect their package holiday by booking with an Atol-licensed tour operator.”
The next round of renewals in September, when about 60% of licences come up for renewal, is larger than the May process.
In anticipation of the September renewal, the CAA issued a reminder to travel businesses that “they should apply to renew their Atol well in advance of the deadline because of the time required to analyse and process applications, and for the applicant to put any required conditions in place”.
It noted: “Businesses that fail to allow reasonable time to apply by the deadline risk being unable to take Atol-protected bookings.”