€3.5m paid to 13,000 after collapse of travel firms

THE AVIATION industry’s watchdog had to hire extra staff to deal with the fallout from the number of travel business failures last year, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

The Commission for Aviation Regulation reported recently that it dealt with a record 19 travel company failures last year, which involved paying out €3.5 million to 13,000 customers whose travel plans were affected.

Commission chairman Cathal Guillomard told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs yesterday that it had to hire temporary workers to deal with the workload.

“To process these thousands of claims, it was necessary to recruit a team of temporary agency staff, which numbered up to seven persons at its greatest, in order to carry out this work quickly and efficiently,” he said.

Travel companies must have a bond in place to compensate customers in case of a failure. Where the bonds are not enough to meet these costs, the commission operates a traveller protection fund to make up the difference.

The committee also heard that last year, the commission added €2.33 to passenger charges for using Dublin airport to cover the cost of the development of its second terminal. It linked the cap on these charges to quality of service.

If the Dublin Airport Authority failed to meet certain targets, Mr Guillomard said, the cap could be lowered by up to 4.5 per cent a year. It is now working on determining charges for 2011.