January 4th - The Woeful State Of UK Aviation As 2022 Begins
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I take a look at the state of UK air travel following the disastrous past two years for the aviation industry. While some countries and airlines have pulled themselves out of the fire, the UK's reliance on cheap flights to myriad destinations has meant it is taking longer to recover from the effects of the pandemic. The situation has not been helped by the Omicron variant either, meaning that the start of 2022 is looking very turbulent indeed for UK air companies.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape or actually away and having the time of your life. Well, the chances of that look fairly remote because I am looking at the state of UK aviation as the new year begins. |
| 0:24.5 | Of course, this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. |
| 0:29.4 | Do feel free to sign up at independent.co.uk forward slash newsletters. |
| 0:38.2 | The end of a year and the start of another is a very good time to look at how things have |
| 0:43.8 | been doing and for a decade up till the end of 2019 it was entirely a story of increased flights |
| 0:53.5 | increased travel, increased safety, everything going in the |
| 0:58.3 | right direction for aviation. I'm afraid there has been, as you will know, a terrible slump in |
| 1:05.8 | 2020 and 2021. And we now have, thanks to Eurocontrol, which is the pan-European air traffic control |
| 1:13.8 | provider looking after the skies all the way from the North Atlantic to the eastern Mediterranean |
| 1:20.6 | and the Black Sea, they have come up with effectively their state of the nation or state |
| 1:27.0 | of the European continent air traffic |
| 1:31.2 | appraisal. |
| 1:32.9 | And I'm afraid it shows that of all the major European nations, the UK has had far, far |
| 1:42.0 | more of a slump in aviation. Well, let's have a look at how they are doing. |
| 1:48.2 | The quote is, for the second year running, the UK tops the list in terms of flights lost, |
| 1:54.6 | followed at quite some distance by Germany, Spain, then France and Italy. All of those last four countries, Germany, Spain, France, |
| 2:02.6 | Italy managed at least half the flights in 2021 that they had in 2019. But unfortunately, the UK saw |
| 2:11.8 | only 36% of those barely one third. And if you look at airports and airlines, the impact is also very clear. |
| 2:24.7 | The Euro control says that the airline which had the sharpest reduction in flights was EasyJet. |
| 2:33.7 | Of course, Britain's biggest budget carrier. They were down 64% |
| 2:37.6 | in line with the overall slump in aviation. Now bear in mind that many of the flights that did |
| 2:43.6 | operate with EasyJet were within the European Union rather than to and from the UK. At least EasyJet stays in the top 10 of European carriers. |
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