The UK Government should pay back travellers for trips cancelled over coronavirus, a travel chief claims.
The pandemic has forced the cancellations of breaks at home and abroad.
Travel trade body Abta says UK companies face paying back around £4.5 billion under EU rules set out to protect consumers.
Would-be holidaymakers are entitled to refunds within 14 days for package breaks, with some firms offering credit notes in a bid to convince customers to rebook instead of claiming their cash back.
But many travel firms are not making payouts within that timeframe because they are waiting to receive back the money they had passed on to airlines for flights.
This afternoon the hashtag #RefundPassengers was trending on Twitter as users went public with their frustrations over payments for trips they now cannot take.
That came after Mark Tanzer, chief executive of Abta, said "an awful lot of travel companies" would collapse if clients insist on refunds.
Giving evidence to an inquiry by the cross-party Commons Transport Select Committee, Tanzer said the sector is under massive strain and called for the UK Government to take on part of that, telling MPs: "People whose businesses which may have been running for 20 or 30 years are on the point of closing down, others who are literally working 18 hours a day to try and keep thousands of employees in jobs.
"This isn't crying wolf, this is what will happen because there is no cash there until it comes back from the suppliers."
And Tanzer said that if the Westminster will not relax the 14-day rule it should pay some of the refunds itself, stating: "It's in nobody's interests for travel companies to fail at this point".
He told the committee: "The way to save travel companies and jobs is for the government to intervene directly at some point for a properly administered system, to say, 'we will prepay those refunds where the company can't pay it'."
Tanzer said any companies benefitting could repay the public funds at a later date.
He said: "If the government walks away from this altogether, and there is a big demand for cash... then that will knock over an awful lot of travel companies."
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