Mr. Paul Hackett:

Yes, and the package travel directive sits there for the travel agents. There are two pieces of legislation and currently those two pieces are not working simultaneously to the benefit of the consumer. That would be the most diplomatic way of putting it.

The issue on the groups would be a prime example of why the travel agent needs to be refunded. In a group situation one may have a group booking with 20, 30 or 40 unknown individuals. They could be all different couples going on an escorted tour or, in the case quoted by the Deputy, they could be in a school group. It would not be feasible to return the money to one passenger in the school group. In the first instance, the person may be underage or a minor. How could this happen? This would not be the case. The school group has come to the travel agent, has handed over a deposit, has asked for a tour to be booked for education purposes to whatever destination and has put everything together. That has been done. The airline is trying to manoeuvre the scenario to say that it has to refund directly back to the passenger. It does not work in that situation. Groups are one example in which this does not work and there are many other examples. It does not work in the corporate travel sector where a company will have used the company credit card to pay for a flight for an individual to travel to a destination and not that of the individual passenger who is travelling to the destination.

There are many reasons, and what is unfortunate is that up to the time of this pandemic, there was precedent for all of the refunds to go back through the travel agent. This is something new that is being somewhat exploited or used in the current circumstances which is not helpful.