The Consumer Panel is a non-statutory body established to act as a 'critical friend' to the CAA. It provides expert advice to make sure that the consumer interest remains central to CAA policy development and decisions. The Panel focuses on the interests of current and potential aviation consumers, and citizen issues, such as noise from flight paths, do not fall under our remit.
The key activities of the Panel are to:
- Help the CAA to understand fully, and take account of, the interests of consumers in its policy development and decisions.
- Use existing CAA research, request the CAA undertakes new targeted research, and to gather intelligence, to understand the aviation consumer experience.
- Provide the CAA with feedback from a consumer perspective on the effectiveness of its policies and practices.
Contact us
Consumer Panel
Civil Aviation Authority
Westferry Circus
Canary Wharf
London
E14 4HD
Email: consumerpanel@caa.co.uk
The Panel welcomes correspondence from consumers about their experience of the aviation sector, including the work of the CAA. However, while we may use feedback from consumers to inform our thinking and our advice to the CAA, we are not a complaints handling or consumer advice service and are unable to enter into correspondence with individuals.
If you need advice and assistance, including if you are not satisfied with a complaint you have made to an airline or an airport, please contact the CAA’s Passenger Advice and Complaints Team.
CAA Consumer Panel members
The CAA Consumer Panel membership brings together strategic thinking and outstanding analytical aptitude and the ability to apply these in a practical way to improve the experience for commercial air passengers.
Chair
Rt Hon Jenny Willott OBE, Chair
Jenny was appointed to the Panel in January 2018. Jenny was a Member of Parliament for Cardiff Central for ten years, serving as Consumer Affairs Minister, with responsibilities including consumer policy, competition policy and employment law, Women and Equalities Minister and as a Government Whip. She is now the Chief Executive of the charity Re-engage and a Non-Executive Director of SELCAT multi-academy trust. She was formerly the Director of Enterprise and Innovation at St Mary's University, Twickenham, and until December 2020 was a Non-Executive Director for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Prior to entering Parliament, she worked in the voluntary sector, including as Chief Executive of Victim Support South Wales and Head of Advocacy for UNICEF UK.
Members
Professor Chris Gill
Chris Gill is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Glasgow. Chris has expertise in access to justice, administrative justice, and consumer alternative dispute resolution. He has a particular interest in consumer voice and mechanisms for effective feedback, learning, and redress. Chris' research focuses on the experiences of consumers and citizens, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances. Previous projects have included examining access to justice for energy consumers in vulnerable circumstances and facing energy poverty and examining the barriers facing asylum seekers and refugees in accessing public services and making complaints. He is currently working on a project looking at the concept of "user focus" in English, Scottish, and British tribunals. Chris' research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, Leverhulme, the Nuffield Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada). He sits on the Ombudsman Association’s Validation Committee, the Administrative Justice Council's Academic Panel and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s Consumer Panel. Chris also works as a consultant specialising in justice research and innovation.
Deborah Persaud
Deborah is a committed disability rights activist and currently Chair of Transport for All. She is also an independent board member at the National Centre for Accessible Transport. A former senior civil servant, working in a number of central government departments over a 35-year career specialising social and economic policy including consumer affairs, and travelled the world as a diplomat specialising in border control and customs. She has also led corporate and infrastructure projects and has been responsible for turnaround and performance improvement programmes. She also provides organisational development consultancy. Outside of work she is a Trustee of a heritage property, coaches small businesses and is sought after as a mentor. She travels the world as much as she can, and often takes her guide dog with her.
Jennifer Genevieve
Jennifer is a Deputy Director at the Office of Road and Rail, with responsibility for the ORR’s Periodic Review of Network Rail. She has worked on economic regulation, competition policy and consumer protection within sector regulators and industry in roles spanning the rail, aviation, water, financial services, telecoms and broadcasting sectors. She was previously Head of Stakeholder Engagement & Policy at Thames Water, leading work on the business planning process for the industry price review. She has also worked on the setting of charges at airports across Europe as Head of Airport Regulation and Policy at easyJet. Jennifer served for six years as a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel. She also previously worked in strategy and competition policy at Ofcom.
Rick Hill MBE
Rick has had a varied career in both the voluntary sector, film/tv industry and media regulation. Chairman of Northern Ireland Screen Commission 2008-2013, he took the lead role in developing digital content, supporting new programme and delivery formats in the film/tv sector. Rick has also worked in consumer advocacy. He was Chairman of the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, a member of Consumer Focus UK Board and Chairman of the Scottish Government Consumer and Competition Working Group. He was Deputy Chairperson of the Independent Press Standards Organisation until 2020, and until recently Communications Consumer Panel Chairperson and the Northern Ireland Member. Rick also chairs the Telecoms Industry Forum and the UK Communications Consumer Forum.
Jacqueline Minor
Following a short period lecturing in law at the University of Leicester, Jacqueline Minor joined the European civil service, first at the Court of Justice and subsequently at the European Commission. After more than 20 years’ working on Internal Market issues, including a period as Director responsible for Consumer Policy, she served as Head of the Commission’s Representation in the UK from 2013 until retirement in 2017.
David Thomas
David is a chartered accountant and an economist. He was appointed a specialist panel member at the Competition and Markets Authority in 2017 and in 2018 a member of competition and enforcement decision committees at the Payment Systems Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority. Since 2016 he has run his own consulting practice focusing on economics, regulation and disputes, largely in the communications sector. David was a director of competition and regulatory finance at Ofcom where he had responsibility for, among other things, price controls. After leaving Ofcom he established and led KPMG’s global economics and regulation practice.
James Walker
James is the founder of Resolver.co.uk, a free online complaints service that James grew to help over 18 million consumers a year to resolve their disputes. He has advised the Government on consumer issues and is a Board Member for Consumer Scotland, Collaboration Network and the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman. A winner of Social Entrepreneur of the year, James is a non-executive for a number of start-ups including Rightly and JamDoughnut. His focus is on helping businesses deliver market-leading customer service, while helping consumers understand and exercise their consumer rights. James also has three national weekly consumer columns.
Vaughan Williams
Vaughan is a consumer protection and regulatory lawyer with expertise in industry-based ADR and in regulatory compliance and enforcement. He currently works on redress matters in the Legal Division of the Financial Conduct Authority, and previously worked for a number of years at the energy regulator Ofgem where he was a senior lawyer in the enforcement team. He was previously Principal Investigator at the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in his native Australia. Vaughan has also spent time in the community sector, having been Secretary of the Public Transport Users Association in Melbourne and representing that organisation on a number of advisory and advocacy bodies including the working party that established Victoria’s Public Transport Ombudsman. He is a supervising lawyer at the Waterloo Legal Advice Service and sits as a magistrate on the South East London bench.