Pilots’ union: Government is ‘destroying the airline industry’

Balpa demands financial support after ‘lockdown body blow’

Empty quarter: Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (Simon Calder)

On the eve of the second lockdown and shutdown of air travel, the main pilots’ union has attacked the government’s treatment of UK aviation in unprecedented terms.

Brian Strutton, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa), said: “If the government were determined to destroy the airline industry they couldn’t be doing a better job.

“Hundreds of pilots and thousands of other workers have lost their jobs, and thousands more have taken pay cuts or are working part time.”

Balpa has issued a series of demands, starting with a commitment to end the ban on leisure travel by 2 December.

The union also wants “financial compensation ring-fenced away from shareholders,” and a one-year waiver of Air Passenger Duty – which currently adds between £13 and £176 to air fares for flights from UK airports.

Mr Strutton said: “The prime minister’s announcement that domestic and international leisure travel will be banned during the second lockdown is yet another body blow for the airline sector and the thousands of people who work in it.

"Airlines, airports, handling companies and many others who provide services to this vital sector are struggling to survive and are desperate for government support.”

Balpa is calling for a roll-out of airport Covid-19 testing "ready to go at the end of lockdown as an alternative to the ever-changing quarantine and lockdown restrictions”.

During Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson answered a question from Huw Merriman, the Tory chair of the Transport Select Committee by acknowledging the aviation industry is having a “terrible, terrible time”.

Mr Johnson said: “My sympathies are very much with all the employees involved.”

Then the prime minister appeared to suggest that the NHS testing programme could be deployed for the so-called “test and release” plan – in which arriving travellers spend a week in quarantine, take a Covid test and end self-isolation if it is negative.

“One of the benefits of getting PCR testing up to 500,000 a day is that we do have new possibilities of all kinds across the country,” he said.

“We will be bringing forward further measures and further proposals as soon as they are finalised."

The Global Travel Taskforce, which is co-chaired by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has previously insisted tests must be conducted privately.

The taskforce is due to publish proposals imminently to reduce the current 14 days of quarantine for almost all arrivals to the UK.

The government says it has supported 55,800 passenger air transport employees under the job retention scheme, and that the aviation sector has been able to benefit from £1.8bn in financial help.