The CAA has launched a new online training course for Atol holders.

The course must be completed by companies’ Accountable Persons, and is designed to ensure that they have a “thorough understanding of the obligations to consumers”, the CAA said.

It also aims to ensure that legal requirements which are needed by Atol holders to sell air holidays and trade are within the law.

The authority added that it wanted to raise Atol holders’ awareness of their responsibilities and reduce the time spent by Atol holders and the CAA on compliance issues, which it said were typically “due to insufficient understanding of the Atol regulations”.

“The vast majority of Atol holders are compliant, but there is a minority who are not,” Andy Cohen, head of Atol at the CAA, said.

“This move will help Atol holders comply with the Atol regulations and reduce the number of compliance issues we currently see across different aspects, from advertising and selling to consumers, to providing us with the correct information when we require it.

“During its development, we trialled the course with a range of Atol holders and we received very positive feedback.”

Once the course is completed Accountable Persons must take a multiple-choice test to assess their understanding of the course’s content.

When it is successfully completed, the CAA said the participant would receive a Certificate of Achievement.  Anyone who does not pass the test will need to re-read any part of the course they did not fully understand and answer a different set of questions on the subject.

The online course will be accessed via a secure login and it will be rolled out in two tranches, the first of which will start before the end of the year. Enrolment details will be sent to all Accountable Persons shortly.