Flybe
Debate between Mike Kane and Paul Maynard(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Paul Maynard
My hon. Friend temps me to go into a great, lengthy answer about franchising arrangements with Flybe, which I am trying not to do, but I very much hear his point and I regularly wade into the detail of that.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Minister went to school a stone’s throw from Manchester airport in my constituency, but is the voice of northern England being heard? After the Thomas Cook debacle, 2.8 million passengers were taken out of capacity. If this Flybe collapse happens, that will affect 1.8 million passengers out of Manchester airport. I know that people are worried about climate change, but APD was a tax devised by London civil servants in Whitehall cooling towers that crippled the growth of regional airports throughout our country, and we are paying the price for that.
Paul Maynard
The hon. Gentleman is always a good defender of Manchester airport—I will grant him that. As he will know, ACL determines slot allocation at Manchester. The Thomas Cook slots have already been reallocated among easyJet and Jet2. ACL has the matter in hand. I recognise Manchester’s interest in the process.