Speaking during a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee hearing on Tuesday (14 June) Robert Courts admitted he was “sympathetic” to the sector, but said the government had provided adequate support during the pandemic to enable the industry to restart effectively.
“This has been an incredibly difficult time for the aviation sector,” Courts acknowledged. “I have enormous sympathy with the difficult decisions they have had to make.
“We tried to give support to the sector to enable it to maintain a level of service and be in a position to bounce back when the time came. The most important thing was to make sure they could keep flying again as soon as possible.”
However, Courts added: “That said, it’s a privately run industry and it’s the responsibility of the sector to ensure it has the people throughout the entirety of the aviation eco-system to be able to operate the flights they are offering for sale.”
During the pandemic Courts said “the government over-archingly took the approach to not have sector-specific support, but to support the whole economy no matter what the industry was, through furlough and loans”.
“That support was there,” he insisted. “Once restrictions were removed, we were then in a position to understand at what rate demand would come back.
“I have enormous sympathy for the sector in them trying to understand at what rate that demand would come back and how to deal with this extremely uncharted territory. But it is the responsibility of the sector at the end of the day to look at how many tickets it is offering for sale and how many it can service.
“I have been engaged in this situation for some time,” Courts added. “But going forward I will be scrutinising those plans on a very regular basis.
Executives from British Airways, Tui, and easyJet were among those giving evidence during sessions.
Earlier Which? accused airlines of "blatantly flouting" consumer rights in regards to recent delays and cancellations faced by holidaymakers, but said both industry and government were to blame.
The organisation’s head of consumer rights and food policy, Sue Davies, said the aviation industry and the government should "shoulder the responsibility for the chaos" regarding the delays and cancellations.
