Budget Travel not granted license to trade..

[oldnick]

According to aviationreg.ie , the website of the Commission for Aviation Regulation which grants licenses to tour operators and travel agents, Budget Travel has not -as per the latest update on that website -yet been granted a license to continue trading as a tour operator or as a travel agent.

It is now one week since their last license expired and, strictly speaking, this means that they cannot trade.

Budget Travel have recently closed nearly half of their outlets and its telesales operation - and made dozens of staff redundant.

This evening a travel news-site, Travelbiz, reported that the M.D. of Budget Travel has resigned.

I wonder what this all means ?
Will the Icelandic owners of Budget inject the funds or at least provide the guarantee that the government (thru the Commission) are asking ?

We'll know in a couple of days.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this has booked a holiday with Budget.....

 

[undo]

Posts like this one are very important of course so people do not book with a bankrupt outlet and lose their money. But I think it would only be fair if you clearly stated in such a post that you are a travel agent yourself, thus essentially discouraging people from booking with your competition.

 

[Graham_07]

Nick, noticed in recent days Budget's online booking system was not working if you tried to progress past original pages for viewing into the actual booking section, text said "due to high volume", please ring a certain number or your local agent. However it came right again about 2 days ago.

I once has a situation where a TA client, due to an error on aviationregs part, did not get their licence by due date and got a fax frrom them telling her not under any circumstances to open her door past 01/05 as she was not licensed. ( they had mislaid some additional info sent in and thought it never went in and had not completed her licence renewal ) . There was panic until the documents turned up and they duly issued the licence. I wonder do they still do this to TA/TO's ? and if not why not.

 

[oldnick]

There's a sort of game that is played between TAs/TOs and the Commission for Aviation Regulations(CART).

When the license has not been renewed CART warns the TA not to trade. But in reality CART tend not to do anything to that TA if that TA continues trading for a week or so because...

a) There may only be a technical reason that everything is not in order-missing signature, wrong-dated cheque,mislaid documents etc- and CART knows that the TA has funds and a good track record.
b) CART knows it may have erred or been slow in not issuing the license and are reluctant to force the agent to immediately stop trading - and make people unemployed.

So CART tend to act warily at first-they want to be reasonable (- and also not to get sued in case they've erred). They issue a warning to cease trading but they know the TA won't act on it. And after a week or so everything is O.K.

In 28 years since this licensing law came in CART refuse to renew only a couple of applications each year . An agent who applies has usually gone thru all the steps, arranged the finances, got his audited accounts in order- and wants to keep trading.

For tour operators (TOs) CART are stricter, but they still tend to be reasonable.
After all, closing down a company with passengers abroad, with families looking forward to a holiday and throwing staff on the dole is not an easy decision.
CART really have to believe that the public is at financial risk before they close a tour operator or large travel agency.

The fact that CART has come down so hard on Budget Travel with nearly 200 staff still employed suggest that CART must be really concerned about Budgets finances.

Or maybe, the boss of CART had a rotten holiday with Budget Travel....
--------------------------

(PS Graham on another subject ; look at the information sheet on new VAT rules for TAs on Revenue.ie -I may ask you a question in another thread.)