Yet another ATOL failure, where Client pre-payments appear to have been misappropriated.

Despite having negative net assets and declining sales in their last published accounts, the CAA elected to give Jetline an ATOL licence for 4,750 passengers.

Last week Jetline failed, following reports that cruise lines had not been paid for imminent client departures.

Jetline’s most recent accounts show millions of Pounds of Client pre-payments were no longer within the business, with just £1.1M of cash in hand. Scandalously the CAA had this information when they granted a year’s ATOL in September 2024.

The CAA’s Air Travel Trust subsidy scheme (ATT) will ensure Clients are refunded, with the bill paid by enforced contributions, penalising well run and properly capitalised travel companies. Those who operate Trust accounts should be excused paying the APC subsidy, so giving due encouragement.

Jetline Clients will lose their holidays and wait months for their refund, causing unnecessary upset.

The CAA must act on their long-running consultation and outlaw the misappropriation of Client money as ‘working capital’.

If Client pre-payments for ATOL protected bookings are held in Escrow or Trust it will make failures less frequent. Further, in the event of failures it will enable holidays to go ahead as the money to pay suppliers is safeguarded. No Travel company who safeguard Client money in Trust has had to call on the ATT, whereas those without have cost hundreds of Millions of Pounds in the last decade.

No other Industry regulator in the UK allows embezzlement of Client funds. The CAA must finally act to implement basic and essential financial regulation in travel.

Investopedia Definition:

"Embezzlement refers to a form of white-collar crime in which a person or entity intentionally misappropriates the assets entrusted to them. In this type of fraud, the embezzler attains the assets lawfully and has the right to process them, but the assets are then unsed for unintended purposes."