Mr. Neil McGowan:

I will be brief. On the wage support side, I agree with everything my colleague in Connect Trade Union said. It is the ninth month of this crisis and nine months since the vast majority of aviation workers received a full week’s pay. The impact that has had on people’s personal finances and their mental health cannot be overstated. Essentially, nine months into the crisis aviation has been operating at level 5 throughout. The rest of the country has moved through levels and things have improved, opened up and so on. Since March, aviation has been operating under conditions akin to level 5 and that must be recognised in a tailored wage support scheme.

Regarding the health and safety concerns, we made reference to our concerns in the submission. Our concern is very much around what is likely to happen when the airport gets busy again in terms of social distancing. One of the aviation recovery task force report recommendations was that funding be made available for infrastructure to ensure social distancing takes place and work can be carried out in a safe way. We all know what a crowded security area in the airport looks like. We all know what it is like to queue in a crowded immigration hall. Staff are expected to work in that environment all the time. This issue has not arisen much at this stage because the airport is very quiet, although there have been some very limited examples of it. From our point of view, the issue is very much looking ahead to what is likely to happen when the industry recovers and making sure protections are in place for .people