In an update on the renewals process issued on Monday (4 October), the CAA said that of the 1,133 Atols due to expire at the end of last month, 871 had been renewed with a further 118 still in the process. 

The CAA revealed 217 businesses had applied during the fourteen days leading up to the 30 September deadline - 85 of which were in the last three days.

There were 144 holders who did not seek to renew, with this figure including 41 trade licensees that no longer require an Atol. The figure compares with 176 companies that did not apply in 2020 and 51 in 2019.

The top three largest Atol holders (as of 3 October 2021) were Tui with 5.1m licensed passengers, Jet2holidays with 3.7m and On the Beach with 1.3m.

There are now 1,517 Atol holders with 661 due to renew in March 2022.

The regulator urged travel firms due to renew in March 2022 to “apply in good time” before the 31 March 2022 deadline because of the time needed to process and analyse applications and put any required conditions in place. 

Michael Budge, head of Atol licensing, said the CAA “understand the pressure the industry is facing” and thanked firms for their cooperation during the renewals process.

He said the CAA had continued to apply the current Atol framework when processing the latest renewals – having announced proposed reform to the system earlier in the year and consultation on its plans closing in August.

“The Atol scheme ultimately exists to protect consumers and therefore it is more important than ever that the Civil Aviation Authority focuses on appropriate protection of customer money, as well as travel businesses maintaining adequate liquidity,” added Budge.