UK Edition
EU mulls emergency plan to keep UK planes flying after no deal Brexit
The European Union is considering emergency plans to keep British planes flying in the EU after a no deal Brexit.
EU agreements allow airlines to operate and land in other member states of the bloc but Britain will leave those after Brexit, even if there is a deal.
There are fears that British airlines would be grounded if negotiators failed to strike a deal because there are no World Trade Organisation rules for aviation for Britain to fall back on.
Today, it emerged that the European Commission told EU-27 diplomats this week to mull the possibility of a skeleton agreement with the UK as a contingency measure to keep British flights in the air.
Slides shown to the diplomats called for a “bare bones” UK-EU agreement that would include traffic rights and safety standards recognition.
This would “ensure basic connectivity” continued despite Britain leaving EU aviation agreements without replacement deals being agreed.
If Theresa May can successfully negotiate a transition period with the EU, which will "deep-freeze" Britain's membership of the EU after Brexit, she will buy valuable time for her negotiators to strike those replacement agreements.
Airlines with headquarters in the EU will be able to continue flying in the bloc after Brexit. In July, EasyJet opened an Austrian headquarters to safeguard its ability fly in the EU.
In July, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told the European Parliament that Britons’ summer holidays would be cancelled after Brexit Day on 29 March 2019. He insisted there was a very real chance of Britain failing to secure a Brexit deal.
“There is a real prospect, and we need to deal with this, that there are going to be no flights between the UK and Europe for a period of weeks, months beyond March 2019,” the flamboyant Remain-supporting CEO said.
The commission slides said the future relationship could be based on existing aviation agreements with countries such as the USA and Canada.
But the UK would lose its membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), an influential regulator and standards setter, said the slides, which were shown to diplomats as part of preparations for EU-UK talks on the post-Brexit relations.
It would also be excluded from EASA meetings for the duration of the transition period, if it is agreed, unless there were “exceptional circumstances”.