I have bought tickets to fly with Zoom Airlines in the coming months. Will I get a refund?

It depends where you bought the ticket and how you paid for it.

I got tickets through www.flyzoom.com

If you have booked a flight direct with an airline and it goes bankrupt, the airline is not obliged to reimburse or repatriate you.

However, if you bought the ticket direct from the Zoom website using a credit card and the purchase was more than £100 per transaction, you should be able to get a refund from your credit card provider under the Consumer Credit Act. If the purchase was with a debit card, you will not usually get a refund, although a statement on the Zoom website suggests it is worth pursuing a debit card company for reimbursement.

There's advice on the Consumer Direct website concerning how to claim and letter templates to download and send off with your details.

I got my ticket through a travel agent or third party website

If the travel agent or website holds an ATOL (Air Travel Organisers Licence), customers should be able to get a full refund through the scheme. Under the ATOL scheme travellers are flown home and reimbursed in the event of any of the holiday providers going bust.

However, traditionally ATOLs only cover travel purchases when a flight has been bought together with a hotel or other travel product, and while some travel agents will cover a flight-only purchase with an ATOL, others, such as ebookers.com, exclude bookings that are for flights with "low cost airlines". The only way to check is to ask the travel agent or tour operator when you book whether all of the elements of your booking will be bonded.

Will most people get a refund?

According to Zoom, 80 per cent of its passenger bookings were made using credit cards or through travel operators - so their money should be protected.

The airline claims that it had forward bookings from 40,000 passengers, 4,500 of whom are based in the UK and were due to travel within the next week, and 10,400 of whom were UK-based and due to travel in the next 12 months,.

Can I get a refund through my travel insurer?

Most travel insurers do not cover the failure of airlines, but more expensive policies may do - it is worth checking the small print.

If you book flights through a travel agent, you may receive financial protection against airline bankruptcy by purchasing Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance, which can only be bought through an agent. It is not offered by all travel agents and does not cover all airlines - for example, it may not cover start-up airlines or those airlines filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the time of booking. Check your travel documents or phone the agent to confirm.

Is it risky to book tickets with other low cost airlines?

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary and the Air Transport User's Council (AUC) are among those who have forecast further airline bankruptcies this year.

The AUC believes that rising oil prices will drive further airline casualties, and is calling for more action to protect consumers. Its calls are backed by the ATOL authority. The two groups are proposing a small levy on every ticket sold, possibly £1 or less, to create a fund that would be used to bail out stranded passengers.

Among the carriers that have gone bust in the last 12 months are Oasis, an airline that operated from London to Hong Kong, and business-class only airlines Silverjet, Eos and Maxjet.

Anyone booking airline tickets in the coming months, low cost or otherwise, should ensure their booking is covered by an ATOL, or under the Consumer Credit Act, if they want reimbursement in the event of bankruptcy.

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