CAA in plea for Trust Fund cash

THE CIVIL Aviation Authority has urged the Government to speed up the progress of introducing a levy on travellers to take the strain off the holidaymakers’ protection fund.

According to the CAA’s latest figures, the Air Travel Trust Fund has fallen £800,000 further into the red to £9.1 million in the past year and the CAA has warned further operator failures could pile on more pressure.

The authority has repeatedly called for a consumer levy to top up the bill, but such a charge requires primary

legislation. Although the Department for Transport has begun preliminary steps to establish legal powers, parliamentary time has not been allocated to discuss the bill.

CAA director of consumer protection Helen Simpson said: “The Government has been talking about this bill since 1992 but nothing has really happened.

“There are many competing issues for the House of Commons to hear and this one simply hasn’t been high on the agenda. Something needs to be done.”

Simpson added the levy could be introduced either on a per passenger basis or as a proportion of total annual turnover.

In a letter to Alistair Darling, secretary of state for transport, Air Travel Trust Fund chairman Roger Mountford said: “The UK’s financial protection system can only handle failures effectively if it has immediate access to enough funds to

guarantee payments to those suppliers.”