Flybe

Lord Kilclooney Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. I reiterate that regional connectivity is critical in aviation and across all modes. We will do whatever we can to ensure excellent regional connectivity going forward. Public service obligations can be incredibly important for social, medical and economic reasons. At the moment, we can add PSOs only on existing routes to London where they are in danger of being lost. However, we will look at all options for expanding the scope of our PSO policy in future.

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

My Lords, since Northern Ireland has no bridge or tunnel connections with the rest of the United Kingdom, and since some 90% of the flights from Belfast City Airport are by Flybe going to the regions of Scotland, Wales and England, will the Government take into account the future viability of Belfast City Airport as they consider Flybe?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. It is the case that, should Flybe at some point in future not be operating, there would be a significant impact on certain airports, and I know that Belfast is one of them. I believe there is already one PSO in operation in Belfast, but I will have to check and I will come back to the noble Lord if I am wrong on that. The Government will look at all routes. Regional connectivity is critical to us, so where we need new PSOs, we will put them in place.