Thomas Cook holidaymakers could have to wait up to two months for refund, aviation regulator says

The CAA has vowed to refund non-direct debit customers within 60 days
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Luke O'Reilly30 September 2019

Thomas Cook holidaymakers seeking refunds after the firm’s collapse could have to wait up to two months.

In a statement the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that direct debit customers will be refunded within 14 days, but others will have to wait for up to 60 days.

The aviation regulator also confirmed that there would be no way for out-of-pocket customers to speed up their application.

Speaking to The Evening Standard Online a CAA spokeswoman said that there will be “no fast track service” for holidaymakers whose circumstances may be worse than others.

“Everyone has got a circumstance, or you can imagine everyone wants money back”, she said.

“There won’t be a fast track service.”

Thomas Cook collapse - In pictures

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The aviation regulator said that this scheme applies to 360,000 people, three times larger than any previous refund programme, and that it will be launching an online refund service on its website from October 7 to cope with demand.

That service will include an online refund form for claimants to fill in.

The CAA said: “We hope to pay refunds within 60 days of receiving a valid refund form. More information will be available on our website from 7 October”

The scale of the refunds brought about by Thomas Cook’s collapse and the danger of fraud is understood to have made the process more time consuming.

The CAA claims to have brought home 106,000 people in the past week, more than two-thirds of the people on holiday with the tour operator when it suddenly collapsed earlier this month.

Named Operation Matterhorn, after the highest peak in the Swiss Alps, this is the largest repatriation initiative since the World War 2.

However, there are still more than 43,000 people on holiday abroad due to return on or before October 6.

Richard Moriarty, chief executive at the UK branch of the CAA warned that the scale of this operation will lead to inconvenience.

"The scale and complexity of this operation will inevitably cause some inconvenience and disruption and I would like to thank holidaymakers for bearing with us”, he said.

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