Alan Bowen, legal advisor to the Association of Atol Holders, said attempts to recoup the cost of repatriation flights from Atol-holders, credit and debit card companies would fail, as few clients were likely to fill in forms handed to them by the CAA.
The Department for Transport is understood to be attempting to claim £250 per passenger from the industry.
He said credit card companies would resist paying repatriation costs, because under the Consumer Credit Act there was no loss to the customer, and so no claim can be made by the customer. As a consequence, cash to pay repatriation costs would most likely be taken from the Air TravelTrust Fund, even though most Monarch clients were not Atol protected, he said.
“There’s about £145 million in the Air Travel Trust Fund; if the bill is £60 million, that’s a huge chunk for a failure where probably only 10% were Atol-protected.”
Aito chairman Derek Moore also told the Independent that tour operators were being asked to pay up to £250pp to help cover the final bill.
“They are now talking about, ‘You have to pay £250 as an operator for people to be repatriated.’ The travel industry is frankly disgusted,” he said.
Transport secretary Chris Grayling admitted last week that the government had “entered into discussions with several third parties with a view to recovering some of the costs of this operation”.
The Association of Atol Companies was due to meet with the CAA to discuss the issue last week, but the authority cancelled at short notice.
The industry is also angry that the CAA’s repatriation flights cost an estimated total £550 per head, due to it bringing in aircraft from as far afield as Qatar and the US. Bowen said the total £60 million bill should have been far less.
“For the airlines involved, it must have seemed like Christmas come early, but for Atol-holders, this is bad news. One of our members had six clients booked to return from Venice who missed the CAA’s transfer bus and contacted our member to arrange repatriation.
The member paid £96pp and saved £900 [compared with the DfT’s costs] on just one booking.”
