Privatisation has brought numerous benefits across a variety of former state-owned industries in the UK. Yet the renationalistion of airlines is not as far-fetched as it sounds: 2017 polling suggested that 27 and 23 per cent of the public wanted to nationalise airlines and travel agents respectively.[1] Thomas Cook was taken into public ownernship by the postwar Attlee government[2] and the administration of Boris Johnson was under significant pressure to intervene on Flybe, a UK regional airline.[3]
Read the case for airline privatisation in full.
[1] Legatum Institute, Public opinion in the post-Brexit era: Economic attitudes in modern Britain, October 2017.
[2] Willman, J., Nationalisation: a blast from the past, Financial Times, 18 January 2008.
[3] BBC, Flybe: Viable business or destined to fail?, 17 January 2020, www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51133166, (accessed 21 February 2020).