The UK’s government (or what passes for it) has published the latest releases of its forecasts for what would happen to key sectors of the British economy in the event of a “no deal” Brexit (and remember that the official position is still that no deal is “better” than a bad deal). One of the most striking in the current releases is the fate of the UK aviation sector in the event of no deal. According to the document: “If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, UK and EU licensed airlines would lose the automatic right to operate air services between the UK and the EU without seeking advance permission.” The reason for this would be that the aviation licenses that permit airlines to fly are EU-issued and would lose their legal validity the day after Brexit.
The government is indulging in wishful thinking in trying to find a non-negotiated fix for this mess. It believes firstly that the airlines would need to seek individual permissions to fly into a respective state, but the EU acts as a bloc and it is surely highly unlikely that this could be achieved on state-by-state basis. Secondly, it falls back on the doctrine of avoidance of mutual harm suggesting that it would unilaterally give EU carriers permission to fly into the UK in the hope that their national authorities will reciprocate: “It would not be in the interest of any EU country or the UK to restrict the choice of destinations that could be served, though if such permissions are not granted, there could be disruption to some flights. EU-licensed airlines would lose the ability to operate wholly within the UK (eg from Heathrow to Edinburgh), and UK-licensed airlines would lose the ability to operate intra-EU air services (eg from Milan to Paris).”
Making the assumption that individual nation states will take a decision that surely requires full EU backing, is questionable, but the UK is hardly acting in its own economic interests by pursuing Brexit and threatening its aviation sector in the first place, so nation states do not always follow the dictates of logic. If one was to play Devil’s advocate, the ability to sever all UK-EU air passenger and cargo links would be a powerful bargaining chip that the EU could use as the UK tries to negotiate trade deals with it as a third-party nation.
It will be recalled that during the negotiation process the government stated that there was no realistic chance of British aviation being unable to fly because of the cessation of the UK’s participation in the Open Skies agreement…