UK voters will choose a new government in a snap general election on July 4—almost five years since the current Conservative administration achieved a decisive majority with a promise to “get Brexit done.” The country’s departure from the European Union has been a largely unacknowledged topic in the campaign, with neither of the two main parties wanting to rekindle a such a highly divisive issue.
Conservatives have failed to gain traction for any tangible benefits from earlier boasts about “Brexit freedoms.” The Labour opposition, which is as much as 25 points ahead in polling, has talked cautiously about recasting the UK’s relationship with the EU while shying away from any suggestion that it might seek to fundamentally reverse Brexit.
Meanwhile, the UK aviation sector has seen its market access significantly curtailed due to the loss of cabotage rights for flights between the UK and EU states. While bilateral agreements have been negotiated, charter operators and FBOs have reported that delays in approving the required permits regularly result in loss of business, despite the supposed availability of block permits.
The UK’s exit from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency has resulted in further isolation, with the national Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) having to reinvent itself as the primary regulator in a way that, many in the industry say, inefficiently duplicates effort with no apparent benefit.
“After Brexit, we started with nothing and the fundamental problem is that you can’t do this at short notice,” acknowledged Glenn Bradley, the CAA’s head of flight operations during the annual conference of the British Business and General Aviation Association (BBGA) in March.
BBGA has expressed growing concern that its members have suffered a significant loss of flexibility in areas such as obstacles to recruiting flight crew and maintenance technicians. Companies have also seen rising costs due to factors such as new border controls.
At an event at Oxford Airport on May 2, BBGA managing director Lindsey Oliver told journalists that the group has started lobbying Labour Party officials in the hope of getting a more sympathetic hearing for its concerns. For the past two years, the ruling Conservative government has failed to send an aviation minister to the association’s annual general meeting, underlining the apparent lack of focus on the business aviation sector.
BBGA has urged the UK government to make good on its pledges about “Brexit freedoms” by supporting its efforts to make the country a more attractive registration for private aircraft. It has been frustrated by the lack of response, and now seems to be more immediately focused on getting the CAA to approve EU licenses to unlock the skills log-jam.
Over the past five years, the number of aircraft registered in the UK has declined. BBGA CEO Marc Bailey said the UK government missed an opportunity to give the sector a competitive edge and that “it is still too difficult to do business,” with more investment needed to rectify these issues.
No Brexit Benefits; Just Missed Opportunities
“The UK government and the CAA have been very slow in dealing with important issues, such as flight crew licensing, approval of maintenance organizations, and aircraft parts certification,” said Luxaviation UK’s CEO George Galanopoulos. “It is still a mystery why the UK CAA did not push to remain in EASA or continue to accept all EASA regulations.”
As far as the industry veteran is concerned, no one in the industry has benefitted from Brexit. “The UK government should continue negotiating flying freedoms with the EU states, which will benefit UK and EU operators,” he concluded. “We should not let politics affect the aviation business.”
At UK-based charter operator SaxonAir, CEO Alex Durand has consistently said that Brexit has delivered none of the promised advantages while inflicting drag on business models that depend on flexibility for success. He described the sector as “stagnating” and added that an incalculable volume of short-notice flight bookings are now being missed.
“The Europeans are just as frustrated as we are and there is a general recognition that no one is gaining anything from Brexit,” he told AIN.
Beyond market access, Durand said difficulties with flight crew licensing and approvals for maintenance organizations are now the most damaging Brexit pinch-points. He “begged” a German maintenance provider to reconsider its decision not to try to renew its clearance to work on UK-registered aircraft, but the company said it simply could not justify the expense and trouble.
“It is now far harder to get licenses, and the UK business is now dwindling due to the skills shortage. We’re seeing the lights blinking out,” Durand said. He indicated that CAA officials had wanted to simply retain EASA requirements but that the Conservative ministers had ordered them to establish new requirements to fit the ideological Brexit narrative about “taking back control” in law-making.
With the election now less than six weeks away, Labour’s leadership has been falling over itself to appear pro-business in the hope of attracting disillusioned Conservative voters who may previously have seen the center-left party as having an anti-wealth stance.
Ahead of the 2019 election, Labour’s shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald floated the idea of a complete ban on private jets burning fossil fuels. This idea does not form any part of the party’s 2024 policy portfolio.
At the same time, Labour is very reluctant to advocate for a reversal of the June 2016 Brexit referendum for fear of alienating those who voted to leave the EU, many of whom switched to Conservative in the 2019 election. BBGA, along with many in the UK aviation sector, was largely silent during the referendum and has still not expressed any regret for either not anticipating the problems Brexit has brought or warning of these dangers.
Durand acknowledged to AIN that few companies at the time wanted to take a public stance on Brexit out of concern about the fractures it could create among colleagues. “But now is a good time for the industry to take stock on this issue, and there is an opportunity to do a deal [to improve trading conditions],” he said. “So far, the regulators have just not been aligned; it’s as if they are frozen in the headlights.”