The ATOL financial protection scheme, which is managed by the UK Civil Aviation Authority on behalf of the Air Travel Trust, has now settled over 75 per cent of the total claims received, totalling payments of over £200 million. These payments cover more than 250,000 claims in total.
Commenting, Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said: “We thank consumers for their ongoing patience as we undertake the UK’s largest and most complex travel claims operation. We want to ensure we get the right amount of money back to the right people as soon as we can, and we have so far paid out over £200 million by settling over a quarter of a million claims, 75 per cent of the total we have received.
“We understand that those consumers that have not been paid yet have had to wait longer than we had hoped and we are doing all we can to process these claims as soon as possible. Unfortunately, our operation has had to include extra checks and processes owing to the quality of the information we received from Thomas Cook’s systems and the potential threats of scams and fraud.
“We will continue to make as many payments as possible each day and contact consumers that need to provide us with further information in order to validate their claims.”
