Government to finally publish new Package Travel Regulations this month

Details of proposed changes to the Atol scheme, part of the government’s efforts to enact the EU’s new Package Travel Directive on July 1, were issued earlier this year following further consultation with the industry.

However, it will be the first time agents and other stakeholders have seen the government’s plans for the PTR, which, among other things, defines what is and it not considered a travel “package”.

Adequately defining a package and also a package “organiser” is vital to agents and other travel operators as it determines who is responsible for providing protection for customers if something goes wrong during their holiday.

The government says the new PTR will protect an extra 10 million UK package holidays. Abta has welcomed the announcement, but stressed until the PTR is published, the announcement only sets out the government’s “expected approach”.

Implementation of PTD been split across three government bodies; the Department for Transport (DfT) and CAA, which have been looking after changes to the Atol scheme, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which has been drafting the new PTR.

There has been widespread criticism of the process from the industry, with groups such as Abta, Aito and the Association of Atol Companies variously stating the proposed changes are too wide-ranging to adopt in such a short space of time.

All EU member states were provided details of the PTD in December 2015 and were given until January 2018 to transpose them into national law. The UK government missed this deadline.

Abta has previously called for any changes to any of the forthcoming new regulations that go beyond what is required by the PTD to be deferred for further consultation and for all three bodies to focus primarily on implementation.

When approached, a spokesperson for BEIS confirmed to TTG it would publish the PTR this month, likely after Parliament reconvenes on April 16 following its Easter recess.

The department said the new regulations would ensure online retailers are responsible for the same level of consumer protection traditional travel agents supply (under Atol) and that customers rights to request refunds would become clearer.

It added measures presented in a new green paper, “Modernising Consumer Markets”, would more stringently hold companies who fail customers to account.