Airports: Delays

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is it not time that the Government took some action on behalf of the airline passengers? If we take the levelling-up strategy, for example, how can it be right that British Airways charges more than £500 for an economy return fare from Glasgow or Edinburgh if it is booked a week in advance? The travelling public are treated very badly by the airlines. In the past, my noble friend has rejected Written Questions from me suggesting that the Government should intervene, which I am sympathetic to, but this is just simply out of hand. The public are being taken for fools.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I maintain my position on intervening in the price of flights, but we are absolutely intervening in terms of the standards of care that passengers receive from the aviation sector. Again, as I mentioned, in the letter that we have recently written to the industry, one thing that we made very clear was that passengers must be informed promptly of their consumer rights. Obviously, passengers should take those up with the airline itself and then with the CAA if it is not acceptably resolved with the airline.