Introduction to the Package Travel Regulations
The roots of the current UK Package Travel Regulations trace back to the 1960s when UK tourists started to venture to Spain and the Mediterranean and the packaged travel industry picked up. During the 1970s there were various high profile failures, such as Court Line, with thousands of passengers left stranded abroad at airports and significant sums of money owed to people yet to travel. Public pressure following the case and other failures forced the UK Government to put in place a set of regulations to protect consumers. The Government subsequently set up the ATOL scheme in 1973, run and administered by the CAA and in 1992 formal UK legislation was put in place to protect consumers purchasing travel packages which were non-flight packages.