The zeitgeist and a pandemic: UK airports and the shock of the new

Abstract

The Christmas party season in 2019 was a time for positive and satisfied reflection at many British airports. The aviation industry was generally in rude health, and land-use planners were busy on expansion projects at several of the country’s largest airports. The major uncertainty remained the impact of the United Kingdom’s imminent departure from the European Union, due at the end of January, although the ‘Brexit’ transition period until the end of 2020, at least gave some hope for a satisfactory resolution of outstanding concerns. But by Easter 2020, in mid-April, any feelings of optimism or quiet complacency would be rudely displaced. Two seismic events aligned to devastating affect; the increasingly widespread public concern over climate change passed a tipping point by impacting directly on the democratic decisionmaking process, and the global coronavirus pandemic swiftly swept away many of the aviation industry’s operational certainties and long-held assumptions on growth. For startled airport leaders and their teams of consultants, the question ‘what on earth happened?’ would have been particularly apposite. Millions of words will be written in response, but this paper — drafted in what is still a fearful and uncertain ‘Lockdown Britain’ — provides a short contemporary perspective based upon three airport case studies.