Southall Travel refunds £110m to customers despite Covid impact
A LEADING travel company has refunded more than £110 million to its customers and the UK government, following disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Southall Travel Group also said that it had repaid all the money from the government’s furlough scheme.
The London-based group is one of the UK’s only major travel companies to have completed all refunds on package holidays which had been cancelled due to the pandemic.
Southall Travel, which has been running for four decades, said it invested in both its customer care centre and its refund processing team shortly after the Covid crisis.
Due to a unique cost structure (scalable for upsizing or downsizing), the group said they were able to adapt, while reducing administration costs by 65 per cent.
The director, Kuljinder Bahia, said the business “quickly made the decision to ramp up our refund operations in order to meet the demands of customers”.
“Despite our business being significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we recently made the decision to repay all furlough money we received from the UK government, for 2020 and 2021,” he explained.
“We felt it was ethically correct to take this action, and not add to the already extreme pressures on the public purse caused by the unprecedented pandemic.”
He added: “The Covid-19 pandemic has continued to impact our business. However, with the incredible success of the vaccine rollout, and the recent positive changes to travel restrictions here in the UK, which will make it much easier for people to travel abroad, there is certainly light at the end of the tunnel.”
Southall Travel Group is one of the UK’s leading travel companies, offering flights, hotels, and package holidays to global destinations, including the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, the US, and the Far East.