However, I had the good fortune to talk directly to the Flight Ops director of a major UK airline a few weeks ago, who assured me that even in the event of a hard Brexit, on March 29th they can keep operating.
Um....I wonder...sounds a familiar claim.... I know one such airline who employ a significant number of non resident EU national Flight/cabin crew. Out of interest did your contact mention the consequences of the end of FOM to his many of his staff’s ability to legitimately to cross the Border into the U.K. on the way to work on the A.M. of 30th March, or does he simply expect them to “wing it”?? As it stands today their status as roughly speaking “frontier workers” has,
AFAIK (and open to correction), yet to be clarified so it’s possible the ICAO Freedoms for airframes might be the least of his or problems...