As is a familiar scene around the world, airlines in the UK have grounded hundreds of flights and airports are operating at minimal capacity as a result of the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis.
Requests for ticket refunds are already outnumbering flight bookings, the tourism industry lies dormant and aircraft manufacturers face significant cashflow issues. The dramatic impacts of the pandemic are likely to be only the start as it is expected that passenger demand will return slowly, once consumers have regained their confidence to travel and restrictions are lifted.
On behalf of the UK’s aviation industry and those working within it, the premier trade organisation for aerospace, defence, security and space sectors (ADS) alongside Airlines UK and the Airport Operators Association (AOA) are jointly putting pressure on the government to extend support schemes before companies face difficult decisions affecting their workforces. They argue that other countries, including the US, Australia, France and Norway, are acting decisively, with unprecedented financial support for airports and airlines. If the UK Government doesn’t take clear steps the UK aviation, aerospace and travel sectors are at risk of being left behind in the recovery.
Aviation is frequently described as one of the engines of the UK economy with around 1.6 million jobs and £92 billion in GDP dependent on aviation, aerospace and the tourism sectors. It enables other businesses to reach customers, trade goods and build new relationships.
While ADS, Airlines UK and the AOA welcome the steps taken so far by the UK Government they also highlight that further urgent steps and better coordinated actions are urgently needed to support the industry and subsequently the UK’s future recovery.
Specifically the three organisations are calling on the government to extend the business rate relief measures already taken for retail, leisure and hospitality to include aviation, as the Scottish Government has done. They are also asking to extend the Job Retention Scheme beyond May and allow for more flexibility, enabling UK aviation and aerospace businesses to avoid unwanted redundancies, safeguard our staff’s regulatory compliance and scale up operations in the coming months. They also want to make financial support schemes to all businesses, amend the current caps on lending to boost accessibility and ensure flexibility is built into the support to ensure it can be repaid in line with the sector’s recovery.
Finally, there is a call for the government to work internationally to ensure a coordinated approach is taken to the lifting of travel restrictions and other related measures to boost consumer confidence.
