FTO wants clearer guidelines for travellers
Friday, 28 Nov, 2005
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ABTA Convention special report: Federation of Tour Operators director Andy Cooper has said holidaymakers must be made aware that they will not automatically be repatriated in a crisis if they have not bought a package.
After the boxing day tsunami, tour operators sent out aircraft to pick up their passengers, but the Foreign Office also sent an aircraft to Bangkok, Thailand, on January 1st, to repatriated other stranded Brits.
“We are unhappy that the Foreign Office is acting as an insurer of last resort. It is undermining the work of tour operators and people shouldn’t expect to be looked after if they book independently,” said Cooper.
He did not want to see Brits left in a crisis situation, but said an alternative might be for independent travellers to be taken to a neutral area and then told to make their own way home. During hurricane Wilma, around 8,500 of the 10,000 Brits in Cancun, Mexico, where on a package and tour operators brought them back to the UK. The Foreign Office flew independent travellers to Dallas.
“I think that was more by accident because the aircraft wasn’t big enough to bring people back to the UK, but we were happy with that situation. Even so, there were Brits complaining that they had been dumped in Dallas and not taken home.”
Foreign Office director of consular services Paul Sizeland said: “The issue is where the government’s responsibility lies. We are working with the travel industry on this one.”
Report by Jeremy Skidmore
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