The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has apologised to thousands of Thomas Cook customers after missing its self-imposed repayment deadline for holidays booked with the collapsed travel company.
The regulator is charged with refunding thousands of cancelled Thomas Cook bookings for customers covered by ATOL financial insurance in the aftermath of the travel company’s September collapse.
However, the CAA has only refunded about 60% (£160 million) of the claims it received within the 60-day repayment target, blaming the delay on incomplete claim forms and a significant number of fraudulent claims.
“We are making good progress and we are sorry for those people that we’ve not yet been able to pay,” said Paul Smith, group director of consumers and markets at the CAA, told BBC News. “There’s still quite a lot to pay and particularly at this time of year we want to get the money back to people as quickly as possible. We want to make sure it is the right money to the right people”
Smith also pointed out that the complexity of the repayment program contributed to the delay.
“This is the biggest refund operation in UK travel,” he told BBC News. “We have paid out already about £160 million and expect over the next couple of days to get that up above £180 million.
