to warn of possible grounding of passenger flights and air freight from 29th March

[Clairetree1]

In order for any plane to take off or land in the UK from the 29th March, we need either

a) an agreement that we can still be included in the European aviation safety agreement, including agreeing to be bound by the European courts.

or

b) The UK civil aviation authority needs to set up its own safety agreement, write all its policies, establish it rules, negotiate with approximately 25 separate governments to come to an agreement that these rules are acceptable for planes flying into and out of their countries ( including the EU and USA), recruit and train several thousand staff, buy and adapt premises, put maintenance and safety procedures into action, to the satisfaction of said 25 governments, under go and pass international inspection and get underway.

My friend in civil aviation has been shouting louder and louder about this for over a year, as time ticks by and nothing whatsoever is done to make progress towards either a or b.

He tells me there was an article about this on the BBC website earlier, but it appears to have been taken down now, at least I can't find it.

Anybody prepared to buy air tickets for April 2019?

In fact the document is here:

ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/aviation.pdf

It allows only for a “bare bones” agreement to retain connectivity in the event of no deal.

Air transport

Aviation safety

the whole preparedness thingy

Before 1972, we used to have to fly around Ireland to get to the US. We used to have to fly around the whole of Africa to get to the other colonies (India, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia).

Irish planes used to have to fly around the UK to get to Brussels. Before then No French, German or Italian* planes had ever been allowed to fly over or land in the UK. Ever.

*These aviation exclusion laws had been in place since the Battles of Agincourt, Ypres (Paschendale) and Galipoli respectively

The EU came along and changed all that. FACT

Thank goodness.

But now we risk going back to the bad old days. Rejoice that the Germans know how to deal with uncooperative Brits.

Carsten Spohr, boss of Lufthansa, made a pointedly political intervention. Flight disruption, he said, was one of the ways the airline industry could show the Brits the full consequences of the Leave vote

But I assume that if your mother died suddenly you would want to be able to at least travel to the UK at short notice to attend her funeral?

There were Windrush generation people who weren't able to travel home to attend relative's funerals, and others who got stuck in Caribbean countries, because of the Home Offices behaviour, so "don't assume" has to be the only advice.

I suspect that other EU countries are already preparing if the automatic passports gates are not working. Will test this out shortly.

Francine, you sound very immature.

Peregrina I’m not assuming anything. My point was that some people will be completely stuffed if they can’t travel between the UK and Europe, even for a few weeks.

Let's hope that an Iceland volcano blows up at a minute past midnight on 30th March, and then there will be no flights, but we can say it's an Act of God.

Excuse me, I am mature enough to be spending 7-8 months in a state of abject panic, hysteria despair.

I wasn't addressing the "don't assume" advice to anyone in particular. We know that the HO has b*ggered up travel for British Citizens of the Windrush generation, so they could do the same for British Citizens who have chosen to live abroad. Or EU citizens who live here, who the HO were already making threatening noises about, although this was more the the belligerent pre 2017 election phase.

I half expect Theresa May to do some 2 minute to midnight stitch up to keep planes flying, no doubt at great expense, but at the moment she seems to think we can just opt back into EASA so it's not looking good.

Now you’re not even making grammatical sense, let alone any other kind of sense.

Battle of Agincourt? In 1415?

He said he expected “something close to continuity” through a Brexit agreement, but “our funding levels . . . mean we are protected. Even if we have no income for two months, we would be financially safe.”

so heathrow's plans are

a) close for 2 months

then

b) go bankrupt

presumably Gatwick and other airports have similar plans?

so we are in a situation where every airport in the uk may possibly stop functioning in just under 8 months and be bankrupt within 10 months.

What is the plan after that?

These aviation exclusion laws had been in place since the Battles of Agincourt

I think it is probably quite true that no French planes flew over UK after the battle of Agincourt

this makes exactly as much sense as anything else in this debate

LoveInTokyo
Now you’re not even making grammatical sense, let alone any other kind of sense.

My humble apologies. Meine Muttersprache war Deutsch

Corrected:

Excuse me, I am mature enough to be spending 7-8 months in a state of abject panic, hysteria AND despair

While writing, might I please highlight that the aggressive public highlighting of grammatical errors in online posts is to be classified in EU directive 65462356188477 as a hate crime, emotional abuse and patriarchal oppression. Just sayin.

Clairetree1
"These aviation exclusion laws had been in place since the Battles of Agincourt"

I think it is probably quite true that no French planes flew over UK after the battle of Agincourt

It was just one of the many, many, many wonderful things that the EU gave us. As I said earlier, until 1972 the British* weren't able to fly anywhere in Europe and vice versa. FACT

• Apart from the RAF Schweinhund

Oh are we making WWII jokes now? How original.

🙄

Unfortunately without the EU, WW III is now virtually a certainty.

@Francine the Battle of Agincourt was about 500 years before flight, wasn't it? Or have I truly entered another dimension....

Clairtree - no you have not entered another dimension, Francine is posting drivel.

I was beginning to wonder if it was her or me.....

I thought arch-Leaver R North had quite an interesting post on the Heathrow prep for Brexit day:

Many of these are not relevant to the UK but many are. And in many important areas, the EEA Agreement provides either the platform on which other agreements are based, or the means by which they are implemented – or both.

That brings us back to where we started, with the problem that Heathrow faces in that it stands to lose the mutual recognition of airport safety certification, leading to a possible shutdown after Brexit (other than domestic flights).

With this even being acknowledged by the CAA, we are desperately in need of a solution which will keep our airports open and our aircraft flying.

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86942

Why is Richard North pro Brexit if he can see how shit it is all going to be?

Seems fairly contradictory.

It's definitely not you Claire.

Francine is completely batshit.