{"id":757,"date":"2018-01-11T19:59:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T17:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=757"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:44:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:44:05","slug":"brexit-impact-on-aviation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=757","title":{"rendered":"Brexit Impact on Aviation"},"content":{"rendered":"Back in December, the European Commission released a notice<\/a> informing airlines that, once the United Kingdom leaves the EU, UK carriers will retain none of the traffic rights to which the Union is a party. \u00a0This was exquisitely glossed over by the British press.\u00a0 Given that the airline that is most likely impacted by this will be Ryanair, one can see why the British aviation industry seems to have taken to heart that famous UK t-shirt slogan of keeping calm and carrying on.\r\n\r\nStill, with this is mind, a recent speech<\/a> by Andrew Haines, in which the CAA Chief Executive outlines a more nuanced and realistic path to navigate Brexit\u2019s impact on aviation, is certainly worth revisiting. \u00a0He is both keeping calm, and indeed carrying on, but not with some t-shirt level of blind optimism.\r\n\r\nOn a fundamental level, aviation is an international business with CAA statistics<\/a> showing that just 16% of UK passengers flew domestically. \u00a0It should come as no surprise that Brexit will have a significant impact on the industry, regardless of what form and level of flaccidity it takes along the Hard to Soft spectrum.\r\n\r\nAs Haines made abundantly clear in his speech, European regulations are vital to each sector of the aviation industry. \u00a0Aircraft certification, for example, is handled on a European level. \u00a0So are things like pilot licencing, air traffic control coordination and consumer rights.\r\n\r\nCurrently, UK airlines rely on EU agreed rights in order to fly to and within the continent.\u00a0 As we have discussed previously, if they are not replaced or renegotiated, the situation risks becoming very messy.\u00a0 At best, the UK carriers can fall back on those rights that existed in 1991 and before the creation of the single European aviation market. Given that bookings will soon open for flights after the UK\u2019s withdrawal deadline, this negotiation must be settled soon to avoid undermining consumer confidence.\u00a0 Ironically, Ryanair too is likely to be badly hit, but no-one is accusing Michael O\u2019Leary of t-shirt levels of complacency.\u00a0 He knows that his Irish airline will have no rights to operation to and from the UK to any country other than Ireland.\u00a0 That is why Ryanair is now obtaining a UK operating certificate too.\r\n\r\nHowever, and reassuringly for the UK, Haines explained how pan-European cooperation and coordination is by no means exclusively intrinsically a European Commission thing. \u00a0In fact, collaboration between national aviation bodies has been ongoing for three generations \u2013 long before the European Commission was a glimmer in Jean Monnet\u2019s eye \u2013 opening up the potential for development, rather than regression.\r\n\r\nBut, Haines notes, as do all the UK carriers, that in order to ensure continued cooperation, it is fundamental for the UK to remain part of EASA. \u00a0Haines argues the case for this from a CAA perspective, claiming that leaving the agency would, at best, require wasted hours spent replicating the vast majority of European regulation. \u00a0The worst case scenario clearly does not bare thinking about, as Haines claims that the CAA have \u201cconsciously decided\u201d not to plan for an independent UK safety system. \u00a0That is demonstrably the correct decision, but does cross several of the UK PM\u2019s \u2018Red Lines\u2019.\u00a0 It will be a non-voting role, risking seeing the UK as a \u2018vassal\u2019 of EASA; it will come with a continuing obligation to contribute financially; and it will remain subject to the European Court of Justice.\u00a0 The more dogmatic Brexiteers are not known for putting sensible decision making ahead of ideology (see: Brexit, what is the sense of) so this is no done deal.\r\n\r\nRegardless of whether the UK remains part of EASA, Westminster, alongside the CCA, will have a job ahead of them, reconstructing aviation regulations and laws. \u00a0Still, every cloud has a silver lining.\u00a0 Haines argues that this provides a rare opportunity to increase competition in the industry, keeping fares low and stimulating the UK market. \u00a0You can almost hear the Brexiteers\u2019 cheers from where you are sitting.\r\n\r\nHaines notes that the barriers to increased competition must be broken down, something the Commission has struggled to do.\u00a0 To be fair to the Commission, they are entrenched and difficult to adapt.\u00a0 Still, in the red, white and blue version of Brexit, the UK would be starting with a comparatively blank slate. \u00a0Like the British bulldogs they think they are, the animal spirits of Brexit can attack afresh these barriers and with Britannia once again ruling the waves, and (more importantly) waiving the rules, anything is possible.\u00a0 Huzzah!\r\n\r\nRemoving these barriers would allow sectors that are in need of modernisation, such as Air Traffic Management to flourish. \u00a0Haines is not alone in arguing this of course.\u00a0 In a recent edition<\/a> of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter, we covered the advantageous impact that market liberalisation, with special regards to TANS, could have on the ATM industry.\u00a0 We wish him luck.\r\n\r\nHaines continues that another advantage of the UK restructuring process is that it provides an opportunity to review existing and out-dated regulation, which have proved harder to tackle in the Commission context. \u00a0His example was slot allocation, another subject on which Aviation Advocacy has been vocal on over the past few years<\/a>. \u00a0In the case of slots, the airline v airport and Commission v Parliament stalemates have prevented fundamental reforms to the allocation system. \u00a0Historical slot ownership is vastly detrimental to competition, and wildly out-dated in the current economic, and political, climate. \u00a0A clean slate for the UK, free of influence from the EC, might, might enable reform, but expect industrial strength pushback from the legacy airlines to this.\u00a0 More luck called for.\r\n\r\nIn contrast to his glass-half-full message of reform opportunities, Haines\u2019 final recommendation is to ring-fence EU protections both with regards to the environment and to passenger rights. \u00a0There has been a lot of debate recently over the extent to which EC261\/2004 (the regulation regarding passenger compensation) is proportional, when compared to the equivalent, and less extreme, regulations for train and ship travel. \u00a0This is normally the sort of yoke Brexiteers like to argue the UK can magically skip clear of as they skip off towards the sunny uplands of post-Brexit bliss.\r\n\r\nClearly, in the face of the negativity regarding Brexit, there are a number of benefits that may emerge from it.\u00a0 However, in order for any of this to happen, all the parties involved must be willing to co-operate.\u00a0 Perhaps they need a form for that cooperation.\u00a0 What about forming some kind of economic and political union? Seems like a rather good idea.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in December, the European Commission released a notice informing airlines that, once the United Kingdom leaves the EU, UK carriers will retain none of the traffic rights to which the Union is a party. \u00a0This was exquisitely glossed over by the British press.\u00a0 Given that the airline that is most likely impacted by this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,29,13,15,11,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-navigation-service-providers","category-air-services-agreements","category-air-traffic-management","category-airlines","category-airports","category-international-civil-aviation-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}