How are UK-based airlines dealing with the continued uncertainty around Brexit?

Membership of the European Union has provided the UK with a flourishing airline industry.

EasyJet was able to expand from a tiny Anglo-Scottish operation with two borrowed planes to become a giant pan-European carrier thanks to the EU principle of “open skies”, which allows any airline from the bloc to fly between any two points in Europe.

The budget airline has re-registered most of its planes in Austria – whose flag conveniently allows the carrier to link Spain with France, and fly domestically in Italy – to preserve the freedom to fly within the European Union.

The cost is running into many millions of pounds but that financial hit is eclipsed by the losses attributed to the political chaos at Westminster.

Last week easyJet’s chief executive Johan Lundgren blamed “macroeconomic uncertainty and many unanswered questions surrounding Brexit” for weaker customer demand. In a month the airline has lost 15 per cent of its value.

Competition to sell seats in a soft market is ferocious, which means a temporary bonus for passengers who are prepared to commit to book.

April fares are far lower than the airlines had hoped. British Airways is selling one-way seats from Almeria on Spain’s Costa del Sol to Gatwick for Monday and Wednesday this week for under £20, including the most generous cabin-baggage allowance in Europe (two pieces of 23kg each). BA can afford to take a hit on Mediterranean services thanks to its traditional cash cow, business flights across the Atlantic.

Once the school Easter holidays end, the revenue outlook in Europe is bleak. In early May, easyJet and Jet2 are struggling to earn more than £50 return for flying travellers from London to Faro on the Portuguese Algarve: 1970s fares in the high-tax, high-cost 21st century.

Trepidation among passengers is understandable when no one knows for sure whether Britain will still be in the European Union come Saturday.

Fears that UK airlines would have to cancel some EU flights this summer have been lifted. But the older travellers who traditionally make up much of the off-peak passenger loads between Britain and the Med do not know if their European Health Insurance Cards will still secure medical treatment next weekend, nor if their driving licences will suddenly expire, from an EU perspective, at midnight local time on Friday.

Brexit uncertainty is weakening airlines, and was partly blamed for the collapse of Flybmi earlier this year.

Looking further ahead to a UK outside the EU, the prospects for British carriers depend on how much freedom to fly will be granted by the French, Germans and Italians – all of whom resent being left behind by the British aviation powerhouse, and may be keen to take back control.

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