A leading industry lawyer has questioned a government proposal to revise air passenger rights to require airlines to pay customer refunds to Atol holders when package holiday flights are cancelled.
Rhys Griffiths, partner and head of travel at law firm Fox Williams, pointed out the proposed right for package organisers “already exists”.
The proposal forms part of a Department for Transport (DfT) consultation on Aviation Consumer Policy Reform launched last week.
This focuses primarily on granting the CAA stronger powers to enforce consumer rights and revised compensation rules for domestic flight delays. But it also seeks views on a revision of EU Regulation 261 on air passenger rights in relation to refunds.
Travel companies have struggled to refund package customers for cancelled holidays during the Covid pandemic because of the difficulty of obtaining flight refunds from airlines.
Part of the problem is that there are different regulations with differing rules for airline refunds and holiday refunds. Airline refunds fall under EU Regulation 261 as its incorporated in UK law. But package holiday refunds fall under the Package Travel Regulations (PTRs).
The DfT consultation notes industry demands for package organisers “to be able to make a claim on behalf of the consumer . . . where a flight that is part of a package holiday is cancelled”.
It suggests a revision “would make clear in legislation the right for the package organiser to recoup the refund from the airline”.
However, Rhys Griffiths, partner and head of travel at law firm Fox Williams, noted: “These statutory rights already exist in Regulation 29 of the PTRs.”
This gives a package organiser the right to “seek redress from any third parties which contributed to the event triggering compensation”.
Griffiths told Travel Weekly: “This provides a right for package organisers to get something back [from airlines] under the PTRs.
“When an airline cancels a flight [that is part of a package] the obligation to refund the customer sits with the organiser. Regulation 29 of the PTRs gives the right to the organiser to get a refund from the airline. And that is the issue the DfT will be looking at.
“It’s a bit odd not to reference that. It’s unhelpful.”
He argued: “It can only be an oversight. I read this as ‘We’ve heard the travel industry’s concerns and we’re looking at it’. There is a sense someone has chucked it in because people are asking about this.
“We had all these organisers struggling to refund customers and what drove that was the airlines. [But] it’s up to the organisers to bring claims against the airlines.”