The Covid-19 aviation bailout should benefit workers, not offshore billionaires

We should invest in training unemployed workers to participate in a new green economy that will protect rather than destroy Britain’s future, writes Donnachadh McCarthy

(Rex)

It is an unconscionable injustice that not only is our generation trashing the climate, but we are also landing future generations with huge financial debts to pay for that destruction. The UK needs a transition towards a green recovery, not dirty brown bailouts for tax-haven-based, fossil-fuelled billionaires and their corporations.

The aviation industry has been pleading with governments across the world to bail them out, as the fossil-fuel guzzling industry has plunged, Icarus-like, to earth. European flight capacity is down over 88 per cent and passenger figures for Heathrow airport were down 97 per cent.

British Airways has over 30,000 furloughed staff, 80 per cent of whose wages, up to a limit of £2,500 per month, are being paid by the taxpayer. This alone could create public debts of up to nearly £0.5bn. Tens of thousands of other airport, aviation and cruise industry corporations are likewise getting free state grants to pay up to 80 per cent of their staff wages.