Commentary Regulation of provision of flight accommodation Section 94: Regulation of provision of flight accommodation
295.Section 94 amends section 71 of the CAA 1982 to broaden the Secretary of State's powers to regulate the provision of flight accommodation. Section 71 forms the legal basis for the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (ATOL) scheme.
296.The amended subsection (1) of section 71 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring airlines to hold and act in accordance with a licence when making available flight accommodation, except where they are doing so on a flight-only basis on aircraft which they operate. It also enables the making of regulations requiring licences to be held by businesses acting as an agent for another person in procuring flight accommodation, and by businesses facilitating the making available of flight accommodation by another person in circumstances where prescribed arrangements relating to payment are met. Those arrangements are, by virtue of the new subsection (1D) of section 71, arrangements where the business makes or receives a payment in relation to the making available of flight accommodation, or facilitates the making or receiving of such a payment by another person. Businesses which operate in that way may not themselves be making available flight accommodation, or procuring it on behalf of a consumer, and so would not otherwise be subject to the ATOL scheme.
297.The amended section 71(2)(b) enables the regulations, in making provision about the terms of licences, to make provision about goods, services and other benefits purchased alongside a flight without such goods, services and other benefits needing to be supplied in connection with the contract for the flight accommodation.
298.New section (3) of section 71 provides a new power for the Secretary of State to make regulations imposing statutory obligations on licence holders and conferring rights of action for contravention of those obligations, as well as imposing criminal sanctions for their breach. Finally, section 94 of the Act also removes elements of the regulation-making power in section 71 of the CAA 1982 that are no longer required.