Immediately following the liquidation of Thomas Cook on 23 September 2019, travel agents were advised by the UK Civil Aviation Authority to hold on to any pipeline monies – all monies paid to the travel agent by consumers that had not yet been passed to Thomas Cook.
Now ATOL has sent further instructions to travel agents that sold Thomas Cook packages, advising them to return all pipeline monies to the Air Travel Trust (ATT).
In order to avoid any delays in processing ATOL consumer claims, a claims service was launched on 7 October 2019 and ATOL began the process of refunding Thomas Cook’s customers before it gave any instruction on what to do with pipeline monies. With the claims process underway, pipeline monies must be returned to the Air Travel Trust by 31 January 2020.
Providing pipeline monies have been returned to the ATT by 31 January 2020, travel agents will be able to invoice the ATT a handling fee of £50 (+ VAT) for each booking to help cover the associated administrative costs. Travel agents that were awaiting receipt of their commission from Thomas Cook will not be able to deduct this from the pipeline monies owed to the ATT. Any claim for commission must be submitted to the Official Receiver as a claim in liquidation.
Michael Budge, Head of ATOL Licensing at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said: “We are grateful for the cooperation from travel agents over the past weeks. The impact of Thomas Cook’s liquidation is far reaching and we want to ensure that consumers’ refunds are processed efficiently. We will now recover pipeline monies from travel agents and, while we are not able to honour commissions agreed with Thomas Cook, we will be able to pay a handling fee for the return of pipeline monies to the Air Travel Trust.
“The Civil Aviation Authority recognises the scale of this situation and in these exceptional circumstances, to minimise disruption to the industry while agents continue to support their customers, we have extended the period in which agents should return pipeline monies to 31 January 2020.”
