Payment in full at time of booking for flights - needs banning

finneyb

NaughtiusMaximus said:

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. I see no problem in paying for a ticket in full at the time of booking, the issue here is refunds. If a flight is cancelled by the airline there should be legislation in place requiring refunds be paid promptly. 

Nebulous2 said:

Possibly more palatable to the industry would be a separate body holding money until departure. Similar to the deposit protection scheme for renting property. Then the money could be returned if needs be, but it would protect the holiday company from disinclination to travel. 

This solution is acceptable to me.  However, I suspect that a lot of the delay in refunds in due to restricted cash flow, there is little income coming into the airline and the exit tap will need to be well controlled, hence the delays on refunds. Therefore a protection scheme would be needed and the airline will not have access to the advance ticket funds to use as free working cash, which doesn't fit their current business model.
Perhaps CAA has a role to play in this - maybe a letter to them is needed.
Thanks for a useful discussion.