Brexit Means No Summer Holidays After 2019 Shock

More doom and gloom from the Sunday Times about Britain’s prospects outside the EU as we continue to negotiate with ourselves over our exit.  This time we are warned that airline bosses are drawing up plans to warn holidaymakers that their flight to the European Union will be grounded if things go wrong.  But Michael O’Leary, never short of hyperbole, has already gone further by claiming:

• All flights to the EU will be cancelled for months
• Heathrow will be deserted
• Summer holidays will be cancelled unless by road
• Airlines will relocate to Europe

O’Leary is so concerned for holiday makers that he says the only sensible option was for the UK Government to overturn the referendum and remain in the EU.  Mr O’Leary, an Irish citizen, of course knows all about the process of voting until the “right “result is obtained warning us that “Brexit will be one of the great economic suicide notes in history.”

I think we may safely summarise Mr O’Leary’s position, given his EU business model, as “he would say that wouldn’t he.”

However, the issue, as I understand it, is UK participation in the EU-US Air Transport Agreement in its various stages of evolution since 2007.  The agreement applies to all members of the EU so, if we are not in the EU we will be outside the agreement and all Mr O’Leary’s prophesies of doom will come about.  But, as Iceland and Norway show, you don’t have to be in the EU to participate in The Air Transport Agreement.  Norway and Iceland signed separate protocols to the Agreement ensuring a consistent framework for flights between the US and the single aviation market in the EU, including Iceland and Norway.  Even if, as O’Leary says there is no goodwill in Europe towards Britain and that the French and the Germans would like nothing better than to “stick one into the British,” you may agree that economic common sense will apply, not least in the US, and a sensible and seamless modification to the Agreement established.

Overall, I won’t be modifying my holiday plans for 2019 which wouldn’t, in any case, have included consideration for flying O’Leary.