UK travellers venturing overseas for the Easter holiday season are being advised by insolvency and restructuring trade body R3 to make sure their travel insurance covers airline failure, in case the airline their booked to fly with becomes insolvent.
This warning comes after the recent involuntary sale of Flybe to the Connect Airways consortium and the collapse of airline Flybmi. The failure of Flybmi in February saw hundreds of travellers stranded abroad, despite the firm advertising flights for sale a day before entering administration.
The insolvency of an airline can have a drastic impact on even the most organised of holiday plans, so how can you make sure you are not left out of pocket?
You may have some protection against airline insolvency for your holiday if flights and accommodation are booked through a travel company which is ATOL (Air Travel Organiser’s Licence Scheme) protected. This being said, there is no cover under this scheme for flights which are booked separately. There may also be some cover if flights are bought with a credit card.
Some travel insurance policies will offer cover for ‘scheduled airline failure’ or ‘end supplier failure’, but this cover is not automatically offered on all policies so check your policy carefully if this cover is important to you. If you want to understand more about financial failure and the cover available, you can read more here.
