Draft Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 General Committees

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I certainly will not be taking up 80% of the slot, Mr Davies.

After yesterday’s events, nothing screams louder than a debate on airport slots on a Tuesday morning at 9.30 to say that democracy continues in the light of the terrible events that visited our colleague from Southend. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.

We all know that no industry has been as badly hit by the covid-19 pandemic as the aviation sector. I and my colleagues have been fighting for support for a deal to help that industry until such a time it could bounce back on its own two feet. The sector is not just important to airport operators and airlines, but to all those in the supply chains and not forgetting our constituents, many of whom are desperate to get overseas after a really challenging 20 months for holidays, for business and to visit loved ones. It is crucial that we protect what we have, even more so in the absence of the sectoral deal that we called for.

The instrument before us will further suspend the usual rules around allocation of airport slots, often referred to as the “use it or lose it” clause, to enable an airline to have grandfather rights to them. We cannot take a chance on the future of the world’s third largest aviation industry, and so ensuring the current process continues, as it has since we originally met to discuss the regulations, is the right thing to do by the wider industry.

In saying that, I express a couple of caveats. At a time when no passengers were able to fly it was nonsensical to see empty flights taking off to preserve the slot allocation for a given airline. We know that there are historical issues with bigger airlines sitting on slots and preventing other airlines from entering the marketplace. At the height of the pandemic, we also saw some very poor practices by one or two of our major airlines in terms of hire and refire. They may carry our flag but do they carry our values? For that reason it is vital that we should be down here to support the Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill to be introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on Friday.

Will the Minister assure me that the Government will react quickly to reassess the situation as the aviation industry reactivates? Recovery has been slow and UK airports and airlines have recovered at a slower rate than our European counterparts. That has much to do with the impact of the sector-specific deals that our major competitors established during the pandemic. It is vital that as we slowly emerge from the pandemic and rebuild our aviation sector, we build back green and build back better.

I look forward to working with the Minister on the modernisation of our airspace, which is a vital part of upgrading the analogue infrastructure to the digital age for our aviation industries. That will give them a much needed boost of confidence, so that we can keep our world-class sector here in the United Kingdom.