International travel March 2019

[TakeAChanseyOnMe]

DH + 2 in laws + I are planning a trip to east Asia next Spring. We originally thought about April but should we have anything to worry about with the March Brexit deadline? I understand there's an extended deadline to Dec 2019.

3 out of 4 have British passports, one has an Irish passport but dual citizenship of GB. It'd be UK city -> Dubai -> Asia so not involving any mainland Europe countries. Am I worrying about nothing? Otherwise we'll just book the dates when it's cheapest!

After the two planes hit the twin towers, there were no USA flights for at least the next day.
When the volcano erupted there were no EU flights.
But yes glasserator is right, we are important, we used to have an Empire, of course everyone will bend over backwards to accommodate us.

We are one of the leading countries/powers in the world

I think that's all going to change on 29th March 2019.

I've booked my flights for Easter school holidays next year to East Asia. It's early April, and I'm not worried.

I've checked online about flight rights. The country I'm flying to has an agreement with the UK before we join the EU. So there should be no problem flying there. The only problem could be flying over EU air space. Have you checked the flying agreement to the country you are flying to?

@glasserator

This is the problem with Brexit. Brexiteers have a totally unrealistic world view. We are at best mid-ranked power. We are in a rapid comparative decline. You appear to have done no research, no reading and no thought.

Might be an idea to read up
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/european-common-aviation-area-brexit

www.ft.com/content/57c0c01c-ef9c-11e6-930f-061b01e23655

See this www.thetimes.co.uk/article/open-skies-deal-will-see-china-flights-take-off-lxzv30q66

There are bilateral deals between UK and East Asia. A lot of them will be pre EU. This is a new one with China, as I don't think many flies to China in the 60s?

Are pre -EU agreements still valid? Do they, for example, depend on a CAA being up and running?

@Peregrina The articles I've read all points to only EU flights + third countries negotiated deals for the UK. The country I've booked is HK and there's been flights between HK and Heathrow since ... forever. It would imply there was a deal between the two countries since pre EU.

One third party deal I know of however is the US EU open skies deal. There were talks about US offering the UK a much lesser replacement deal.

HK was British then, so that would have been an internal flight. Not now

The link given above goes some way to addressing the issues - the UK could fall back on the 1944 Chicago Convention, but to my mind there is still a question mark over the certifying authority. The CAA now is not big enough to take on the duties it will take back without significant staff investment.

I can see why you're not worried Auto. Your lack of understanding on this topic is breathtaking and saying UK has flown to HK forever so there shouldn't be any issues in mind boggling

How could any intelligent person think this is Project Fear?

I suspect this is one which will be subject to a very last minute deal - paying 'vast' sums of money (using TM's words) and accepting the jurisdiction of the ECJ. It will be dressed up as having been Project Fear again, and the blurring or rubbing out of the Red Lines will be glossed over.

I suspect this is one which will be subject to a very last minute deal - paying 'vast' sums of money

@RedNed because I believe this.

I can believe there will be no deals for NI border, medicine, parts, etc. But the government is already negotiating deals about flights with the US and China, and probably others. It means they do think it's important and it's getting on with the job.

And also they aren't subject to the EU currently. If it's the case, why have we just striked a deal with 5 Chinese cities on open skies? And why are we already negotiating with the US (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/28/britain-open-skies-deal-us-due-summer-negotiators-agree-key/)

The one that's sticking currently is with flights to the EU.

I mean we are already free to negotiate deals with flights with third country, without having to go brexit first. This is unlike trade deals. We've already signed with China last December, which you can find the details just from googling.

I am not sure that we are currently negotiating with the US about flights. I thought that what they offered was so poor, that the talks stalled? My understanding was that it would destroy British Airlines rights, but give the American ones free rein to come here. I could be wrong.

Given that much of our food and medicine comes from the EU, these deals are the more important than flights elsewhere.

@Peregrina the deal offered by the US was very poor, iirc. It doesn't include BA and Virgin because they aren't majority British owned.

However, how do we get round the lack of certification of our pilots, maintenance agreements etc.? I can imagine that we can risk it for a few days and keep our fingers crossed that no one notices, but there only needs to be some sort of incident and then we are well and truly stuck.

We are one of the leading countries/powers in the world. ..... How can anyone actually think otherwise??

Is anyone bookmarking this thread to come back and reflect on how we are no longer a "leading world country/power" but instead are a slightly crap and somewhat insignificant and humiliated country that is pretty hard to take seriously thanks to unnecessary act of self-destruction?

Can seriously anyone imagine what would happen if UK airports were to shut down for any length of time? What would happen to the staff? Heathrow employs thousands of people.

May thinks that we will be able to stay in the EASA, and I assume that she thinks the EU will blink first. Well, we will see.

@Quietrebel
It would be total chaos, but the Government only in June was advertising for someone to negotiate all the air travel agreements we need so chaos is the least of our worries

@Peregrina but the EU can't unless there is somebody to adjudicate on these agreements, i.e. the EJC, which the government has ruled out remaining in.

What would happen to the staff? Heathrow employs thousands of people.

Well they've taken out a loan facility to be able to cover all their costs for a shutdown of up to 2 months. Presumably that covers their own staff costs.

The fact that they've arranged the loan facility should tell you how seriously they're taking the threat of disruption.

Presumably they understand the issues at least as well as we do.

I would have expected businesses to be much more vocal and to be heard! I am always following the news but didn't know about Heathrow's plans. I find everything incredibly subdued at the moment when every business potentially affected should be making a huge fuss! How can they be so patently ignored by the mainstream media?