Take Southampton, so exposed to the loss of Flybe that 80% of the airport’s routes were lost overnight. I was challenged that we had all our eggs in one basket. And I accepted that this was the truth. However, when your basket isn’t big enough to take larger eggs, you must work with what you have: with one of the shortest runways in the UK, the airport’s resilience was always under threat.
And our plans for extending the runway have been in play for some time, currently moving through the tortuous local planning framework. Had they come to fruition sooner, would they have prevented Flybe’s collapse? No. Would they have shielded the airport from the full brunt of the impact? Most certainly. And is our ambition still there to invest in the future of the airport to provide greater connectivity and greater resilience in the years ahead? Without a doubt.