Sammy Wilson

Sammy Wilson

Democratic Unionist Party — East Antrim

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 November 2024

Debate

Flight Cancellations

Contribution

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker, which as has been outlined is important to many of our constituents. When we sit in the airport lounge and talk to people who have had flights delayed, we see their frustration. I suspect, however, that you wish you had cancelled this urgent question—my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) delayed landing it and took so long that I saw you getting increasingly uneasy as you were listening to him. Increasingly we are finding flights delayed by one company in particular—British Airways—which has a monopoly on these flights. There is an economic lesson to be learned, which is that monopolies are abused. One has only to look at the price charged on some occasions, when someone could fly to Australia cheaper than they can fly to London with British Airways. Sometimes BA gives technical reasons or weather reasons for delaying a flight, but often it is because planes are not full and it amalgamates flights. Will the Minister commit to investigating with BA why the Belfast route is—

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