ABTA Succeeds in Judicial Review on CAA Guidance.

• 
  SAVE
• 
  SHARE
• 
  TEXT SIZE
• 
  PRINT
• 
  COMMENT
• 
  PDF

. October 14, 2008

LONDON, UK, January 17, 2006. Following the Association of British Travel Agents' (ABTA's) application for judicial review of the Civil Aviation Authority's (the CAA's) Guidance Note 26 - the Honourable Mr Justice Goldring today ordered that the Guidance Note be quashed and no longer applicable.

Guidance Note 26 issued by the CAA referred to: "The Sale of Air Package Arrangements: Advice on the need to provide consumer protection." The advice concerned dynamically packaged or tailor-made holidays sold by travel agents and if correct would mean travel agents would have had to obtain an ATOL. This would have cost implications to businesses and would also mean that agents would be liable if any part of that holiday went wrong. The Honourable Mr Justice Goldring has provided guidance on the correct meaning of "package holiday" for the purposes of the Civil Aviation (Air Travel Organisers Licensing) Regulations 1995.

It has been confirmed that:

1.. A package holiday will only be created where a combination of transport, accommodation and/or other tourist services is sold at an "inclusive price".

2.. The sale or offer for sale at an "inclusive price" means that there is a relationship between the component parts of the package which means that the consumer is buying and paying for them as a whole - the consumer cannot buy one element without buying the other.

3.. The words "inclusive price," are key to the definition of a package holiday and should be given their ordinary and natural meaning. This is not the same as "total price".

In summary, therefore many arrangements, which might be classed as tailor-made or dynamically packaged will not be package holidays for the purposes of the CAA Regulations. It was also confirmed that if a travel agent acts properly as the agent of a principal he will not be liable under the contract for the package holiday.

ABTA Chief Executive Mark Tanzer said today, "This is very good news for our Travel Agents Members. We now have a clear interpretation of the law and agents can continue their business providing tailor-made arrangements as they always have done, without the added burden of further cost and regulation."