“The Canary Islands, a vital market for the winter season for several UK airlines, was added as a Travel Corridor a little over a week ago, a positive prospect which has also now been reversed.
“Consequently, the cross-economy support to date has been welcome and necessary to avert a collapse of airline businesses, who have nonetheless relied upon borrowing and other emergency measures to survive, including drawing down on their reserves and building up billions of pounds of debt that will need to be repaid, in a context where recovery is anticipated to take several years.”
Airlines UK added that they hope a coronavirus vaccine will be available by spring and know that people will want to continue to travel in the future but that for “the next period” aviation will need a support and recovery package to see UK airlines through the winter months.
The package proposal includes:
- The continuation of furlough for the aviation sector throughout at least the winter IATA season.
- Additional, direct government grants or additional loans to support airlines, with new loans made available at reasonable rates – based on the fact that travel will return.
- Extension of CCFF and CLBILS timelines from the current 12 months and 36-month timescales out to 5-years for both, and availability of government loans for airlines who are unable to access CCFF or CLBILS, on pre-Covid commercial terms.
