Airline reiterates warnings that planes may not fly even as UK edges closer to EU transition deal

Ryanair has reiterated warnings over “Brexit complacency” in aviation and said it was still preparing to sell tickets with caveats from September, despite hopes a transitional deal for the UK’s departure from the EU was nearer.

The budget airline’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, told the BBC: “Everyone is saying it’ll be all right on the night once we get closer to April 2019. I don’t think you can take that for granted.”

Unless a transition deal is signed, from September 2018 the airline will include the warning on its tickets: “This flight is subject to the regulatory environment allowing the flight to take place.”

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Speaking earlier this week, Jacobs made clear that Ryanair did not expect flights to be grounded in 2019 because of Brexit. However, he added: “There is an element of complacency.”

He said the blueprint for transition set out for aviation, including Theresa May’s suggestion that Britain should stay in the European aviation safety agency EASA, was “a step in the right direction” but would not govern flying rights or airline ownership rules. But, he warned: “There is not a deal done yet.”

Jacobs added that a transition deal would not guarantee full market access for UK airlines to the EU, and vice-versa, after 2021. “That is less certain and the signals on that are more negative than we would like.”

Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Peter Bellew, who ran Malaysia Airlines until late 2017, said uncertainty would take its toll on Britain’s flight connections to global markets: “The UK will lose out over long-haul growth.”



He said: “Brussels is picking up a lot of traffic at the moment,” with Chinese carriers in particular opting to pick an EU destination over UK airports.” Planning a new route typically takes two years to develop and the risk of a different regulatory environment was deterring airlines, he added.

Bellew said that while London Heathrow would not be affected: “I would really worry about the growth of long-haul out of Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow. No one really knows what’s going on and it’s a risk-averse industry,” he said.

“I’m talking to guys in the network planning departments – their heads are wrecked by it.”