The aviation regulator has advised almost 1,200 customers of a company operating Christmas tours to Lapland to seek refunds after it was refused a tour operators’ licence.
Manorcastle Ltd, trading as United Travel, planned to start flights to Lapland this Friday, but has been told by the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) that it has no licence and should cease trading.
United has submitted a fresh application for a licence for tours to Lapland and Dubai and has appealed to CAR to show compassion, but the commissioner, Cathal Guiomard, has said it is extremely unlikely that a new licence would be awarded.
CAR refused to renew the company's annual licence last October, citing its inadequate financial situation and the fact that no charter arrangement appeared to have been put in place. The company appealed to the High Court and continued to take bookings. Last Friday, the court upheld the regulator's decision.
"In the light of that judgment and in the prevailing circumstances of the company, the Commission called upon United Travel to immediately discuss the arrangements for a wind down of its business in an orderly manner in the interests of the traveling public, including refunding customers," CAR said in a statement yesterday. "United Travel is no longer a licensed tour operator and any application for a new tour operator's licence does not alter the company's current status."
A number of customers told RTE Radio's
Livelinethey had paid over €4,000 to bring children to Lapland in the coming days. United's managing director, Con Murphy, said he had "all systems ready to go" if he got a licence, even a temporary one.
Mr Murphy said he has been running tours to Lapland for 21 years without any problems. The company had a bad year last year and lost a considerable amount of money. However, he had "coughed up" the shortfall of €565,000 and put it into the company.
However, Mr Guiomard said that when the licence was refused in October, he would have expected United to either refund passengers or make arrangements with other operators to take them.
He said that the new application would be considered in the normal way. However, given that it came from a company that was judged not to satisfactory a few weeks ago CAR would have to be sure the "defects" from the old application had been removed.
"It won't be possible to give an instantaneous answer. We will have to check that the various statements in the application are true, especially regarding financial resources."
Pointing out that there had been a number of travel company collapses this year, he said he was afraid United would take customers' money and not be able to deliver their holidays.
"I don't want to be the Grinch who has several customers in Lapland on Christmas Eve and no aircraft to get them home," he said.
