Covid: Exeter Airport 'would survive' longer travel ban

Exeter Airport would "absolutely" survive if international travel continued to be banned beyond May because of Covid-19, bosses have said.

Under current government plans, leisure travel may resume from 17 May if virus control conditions are met.

The airport currently only has one flight a week, a domestic route to Belfast, but has unveiled routes to seven countries from May.

Managers also said they were hopeful domestic markets would "bounce back".

As well as flight cuts because of coronavirus, the airport also suffered the loss of its biggest carrier when airline Flybe, based nearby, collapsed in March 2020.

The brand was bought last October, but there has been no announcement as to when it might have aircraft or take on routes.

Some routes were taken over by Eastern Airways and Blue Islands before lockdown restrictions came into force.

Stephen Wiltshire, the airport's director of operations and accountable manager, said the pandemic had hit the airport "quite hard".

He said: "It's a very quiet facility at the moment, but we're looking forward to the summer."

He also said the biggest help had been the government's furlough scheme and the airport had "taken full advantage of that to be able to retain staff and make sure that we're ready to bounce back [for foreign and domestic routes] when flying returns".

When asked if the airport could survive beyond May without foreign travel, he said: "Absolutely. We're very resilient in the business.

"The furlough scheme has been extended until September, so we'll be relying on that to makes sure we've got a flexible workforce so we can flex along with what we've been doing for the last year or so."

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