ABTA to resist any rise in ATOL levy
ABTA has vowed to resist any attempts to increase the £2.50 per passenger levy paid into the Air Travel Trust Fund following the collapse of Thomas Cook.
It is feared there might be calls to increase the levy to replenish the heavily-depleted fund to cover the expensive Thomas Cook repatriation and refunds to customers.
Following XL Leisure’s collapse in 2008 the levy was increased from £1 to £2.50.
Peter Bucks, chair of the Government’s recent Airline Insolvency Review, said the majority of travellers would be prepared to pay up to £5.
The CAA says there are no immediate plans to raise it again but at last week’s ABTA Convention in Tokyo, chief executive Mark Tanzer made a point of saying ABTA would fiercely resist any rise.
"The failure of Thomas Cook has made a big dent in the Air Travel Trust fund but we would very much resist it changing beyond £2.50," he said.
He said even if there were further failures ‘there aren’t many more companies of the size and scale of Thomas Cook’.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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