But whatever the ethics of its business model, Lowcost wasn’t breaking any laws by selling to UK customers from its new bases in Majorca and Krakow, and as EU law stands, there’s nothing to stop another operator or OTA operating in exactly the same way.
So once the dust has settled, will anything change?
Why were UK authorities were unable to prevent Lowcost from selling to the UK market without an Atol licence, while the Irish authorities successfully insisted upon Lowcost being bonded by the Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation? This has meant customers in the Republic of Ireland can claim back their money where UK citizens are unable to.
And could the CAA, and the Atol-abiding industry more widely, do more to make consumers aware of the importance of Atol? Almost certainly.
An unthinkable sequence of tragic events in Nice and Turkey has very understandably kept the Lowcost story further down the headlines than it would otherwise have been – which means consumer awareness has not been raised as much by this collapse as it might have been in another week.
We all know that if holidays are priced cheaply enough, there’ll always be a customer who’ll buy it, no matter if there’s greater risk. But by working together, perhaps we can do a better job of informing those that do care just what the risks can be.
---
As usual, we’re moving to a summer-schedule for the next few weeks, so there’s no print edition this week (July 21) or on August 4.
But, alongside hosting all of our exciting TTG Travel Awards judging panels this week, and running our second, hugely successful TTGLGBT conference today, we will of course be bringing you all the latest on stories like the Lowcost collapse and the situations in Nice and Turkey on ttgmedia.com in between.
