The government’s failure to provide sectoral support to the industry during the Covid pandemic deepened the disruption that has dogged the recovery.
Senior industry figures hit out at ministers when they appeared before a UK Trade and Business Commission hearing into ‘The Brexit challenges facing travel’.
Menzies Aviation head of corporate affairs John Geddes said: “We begged the government to do something at the end of furlough, but they didn’t.”
The government furlough scheme ended last September, almost six months before travel restrictions to and from the UK were lifted. Menzies Aviation is a leading ground-handler at airports.
Heathrow chief of staff Nigel Milton told the commission: “The UK industry received a lot less sectoral support than some European governments gave. The government says it made £8 billion available, but that was for the aerospace industry not aviation. We had to cut further.
“Furlough ended in September when there was no resumption of travel. We lost a lot of people we had kept on furlough after that. That is the reason we see the greatest challenge.”
Milton argued the UK aviation industry “declined more than Europe” as a consequence and said: “Our [passenger] numbers now are higher and we haven’t been able to keep up with the speed of recovery.”
Geddes insisted the disruption is “not a UK-specific problem” but said: “It is worse here.”
Abta director of public affairs Luke Petherbridge said: “There was a lack of financial support to the whole travel industry. Going into November our members were trading at one third of a normal year.”
He noted: “Travel intermediaries had trouble getting around the table at the beginning. Some of the structures of government need to be looked at. Travel is a wide ecosystem.”
However, Petherbridge added: “We’ve seen a remarkably resilient attitude to travel coming out of Covid. That is the reason we’re having this discussion.”
Travel journalist Simon Calder argued: “The UK is having most problems because we had the most draconian restrictions and bounced back much faster.”
Geddes suggested ground handlers had been forgotten during the pandemic, saying: “One of the greatest problems we experienced was that no one listened to us. Everyone talked about airlines and airports, but we had a devil of a job even getting on to a committee. We had one audience with transport secretary Grant Shapps.”
He argued ground handlers could not recover from pandemic-era losses as quickly as airlines and airports, suggesting this added to the crisis in recruitment
Geddes said: “Airlines have a way to recover their costs by putting up fares. Airports have a way to put charges up. We don’t have that. We’re two to three years into five-year contracts. We can’t put prices up.”
UK Trade and Business Commission was set up in 2021 by a cross-party group of MPs and business leaders opposed to Brexit.