Articles

2020/21 will go down in the history books as the airline industry’s most turbulent period to date, with massive fluxes in passenger volumes globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regaining passenger confidence has become a critical factor for airlines to weather the ongoing economic storm and remain competitive in the uncertain year’s ahead.

Many businesses were in the midst of implementing operational changes to function in the new UK/EU trading environment, when the COVID-19 pandemic affected the world in an unprecedented way. However, ahead of the industry is the Transition Period which will last until 31st December 2020. Until that time, UK airlines remain part of EASA and subject to the requirements of EU-Ops; operations to and from the EU 27 countries remain unhindered. However, there is much to achieve and a whole host of agreements have to be set in place if the United Kingdom are to exit the EU in an orderly fashion. It is possible that the UK could leave the EU with no agreement in place (a hard BREXIT). This raises the spectre of what happens to the UK aviation industry in the event of a no-deal exit?