From today, The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will introduce a change to the ATOL scheme for licence holders. Consumers will still get the same levels of financial protection, but the changes are designed to benefit the licence holders and simplify the ATOL protection scheme.

All tour operators selling flights and air holidays will still require an ATOL licence but most will no longer have to provide a bond to the CAA.

Under the ATOL Protection Contribution (APC) scheme introduced today, a £1 per person contribution will be made by the ATOL licence holder to the Air Travel Trust Fund (ATTF) which will replace bonding as the main source of protecting customers. An insurance policy will provide additional funds in the unlikely event that one of the largest licence holders should fail.

ATOL (Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing) is managed by the CAA, and provides repatriation costs if a tour operator fails. In the year to March 2008, ATOL enabled more than 2,000 customers of failed tour operators to complete their holidays and return to the UK, a further 21,000 received refunds of advance payments. For the year, total expenditure on repatriations and refunds was £7.5 million.

For more information about ATOL and to check an ATOL number click on the link