We all know the importance of Gatwick to the economy of Crawley and the wider area.  As well as employing thousands of people at the airport, many more local jobs depend on Gatwick’s success.  Despite some local Labour politicians consistently talking Crawley’s economy down, wanting to keep us in lockdown longer further harming our economy, and supporting damaging rail strikes,  Gatwick and Crawley have bounced back strongly.  So much so, that we are seeing some difficulties that was hard to envisage just a few months ago.     

Strong demand, often from people who haven’t been away for three years or more, as well as staffing shortages, has led to some delays and cancellations at airports across the country including Gatwick.  The majority of UK flights continue to be on time and without disruption, but some passengers have faced significant disruption, which has also occurred in the aviation sector across Europe and globally.  This outcome for too many travellers has been unacceptable as well as not being good for confidence in the industry.

I welcome that our Conservative Government are doing what they can to address this, in time for the peak summer season.  The Transport Secretary has already announced a one-off amnesty on airport slot rules, helping airlines to plan ahead and avoid last-minute cancellations.  Airlines are positively responding to this by using this one-off amnesty to ensure they are giving consumers certainty by offering schedules they can deliver.

Last week the government set out a further 21 measures to help our vital aviation sector.  These are broken down into seeking three key outcomes, those being ensuring the industry can deliver a realistic summer schedule, supporting passengers, and supporting the industry to recruit, retain and train staff.

Just a couple of these measures include the law being changed so that the industry has more flexibility to train staff and allow them to be deployed more quickly and flexibly while maintaining security standards.  Another is a Generation Aviation campaign being launched, working with industry to promote awareness of aviation careers and increase the number of people applying for jobs in the sector.

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

6th July 2022