Airports: Delays

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The strategic risk group is now well under way. It meets weekly at the highest level. It is a CEO-level meeting with the Aviation Minister. It is working on all of the mitigations to the risks as they become higher up the priority list and therefore more urgent. The 22 measures are some of the things that have resulted from the strategic risk group and, indeed, from other conversations that are happening, particularly on the operational side of matters. On night flights, the Government are well aware that there is always a balance between the aviation travelling public and the communities that live and work near airports. The current rules extend to October 2025 and the Government have no plans to change them.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not about time that the airlines stopped selling tickets that they cannot deliver? Should they not reduce the number of sales until they are absolutely certain that they, the airports, their colleagues and the immigration centre have enough resources?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is exactly what the Government have said to the aviation sector. The Government and the CAA wrote to the sector, both the airports and airlines, to set out the expectations for both over the summer period. The first of those is that summer schedules must be reviewed to make sure that they are deliverable. To that end, the Government are changing the regulations with regard to slots, to introduce a slot amnesty for a part of the summer.