British airlines are using loopholes in Britain’s exit process from the European Union to prevent passengers from traveling this summer due to uninterrupted travel. Some of the country’s largest airlines lease full-fledged aircraft from abroad to maintain flight programs in the face of huge staff shortages.
TUI, British Airways, Jet2 and easyJet use a system known as crew to coordinate flight schedules. This allows them to circumvent the Brexit rules, which require EU staff working on UK-registered aircraft to have a UK visa.
The low-cost airline EasyJet has announced that it has signed agreements with eight aircraft from Smart Links Airlines in Latvia. Seven will operate from Gatwick and one from Bristol.
Meanwhile, TUI, the UK’s largest tour operator, has chartered five crew planes from Latvia to fly from Manchester, Gatwick and Doncaster to Sheffield. It also signed an agreement with two aircraft from the Lithuanian airline Avion Express for flights from Gatwick Airport.
British Airways brought four aircraft from its Spanish sister airline, Iberia, and four from Finnair, although part of its fleet is in stock. Other operators operate aircraft operated and serviced by the Spanish carrier Wamos and there is no evidence of a breach.
A spokesman for British Airways said: “In order to give our customers access to as many destinations as possible, our partner airlines operate some European flights on our behalf as we continue to resume operations.”
What is a rental with crew?
Airline executives have told the government that airlines will use more foreign-registered aircraft unless immigration rules are relaxed to help recruit staff to help address staff shortages across the travel industry.
The aircraft and crew are provided by the charter airline. Full service rental is usually used during high traffic seasons to replace unavailable capacity.
Airlines have acknowledged their use of general leasing and have stated that it is common practice in the industry and do not violate UK immigration law. It is estimated that more than 2.5 million passengers travel to and from the UK on EU-registered aircraft and with foreign personnel.
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