Amid the negative headlines of recent weeks (could we really be heading for a no-deal Brexit?), it was heartening to hear there may be good news on the cards.
Industry figures believe the government has recouped little, if any, repatriation costs from the industry following the collapse of Monarch. And while the Department for Transport insists it is pushing ahead to recover some of the £60 million costs it incurred from “travel providers”, sources tell TTG they are confident the DfT may have “quietly dropped” its pursuit.
The news will be a huge relief for the industry. And is, apparently, in part, due to travel firms “holding their nerve”. As well they should. The initial outrage about Monarch was not just that the government decided to repatriate all customers, regardless of their Atol protection, but that it spent far more than necessary doing so. As Aito’s Derek Moore reminds us, “the government signed deals without consulting us... All our members said the same thing – they could have done it for a lot less than £250 per person”.
The government’s overzealous response to the Monarch collapse is a point that hasn’t escaped Peter Bucks, chairman of the Airline Insolvency Review. In an exclusive interview with TTG, he acknowledges the risk of insolvency becoming greater as passenger numbers grow – so it is ever more critical the government learns from Monarch.
One suggestion with “significant support” from the sector is a levy on airline passengers to protect flights. But we’ve been here before, in 2011, when it was suggested airlines pay to protect flight-only customers. The might of the airlines prevented such a policy becoming law then – there’s little to suggest they’ll change their tune now.
And yet the landscape has altered in the past seven years. Bucks predicts an insolvency could a ect nearly 900,000 passengers in the period to 2030. If airlines are the ones at risk, why should anyone else have to pay to prop them up?
