Originally Posted by
BA318
I’m not sure we can say all Eastern European immigrants went home. 6 million people applied for settled status after Brexit (of course not all are from Eastern Europe) but that is nearly 10% of the population. They certainly haven’t just left. Most are far more integrated into British life.
Of course it is difficult for us to know the pertinent numbers of those who got the new permits with leave to remain, or those that got them and lost their jobs and went home, or those who already had permanent residency and long settled anyway, but we are
speaking locally here about catchment areas for Flight Ops to/from SOU serving those Eastern European areas.
What I do know is that the Tourist and Hospitality sector in this area (plus many other Trades, and the SOU based cruise ships), plus in the locales adjoining, the SW region Dorset/Devon have seen those people simply disappear and have gone home.
They have left - Fact, and in large numbers -
Once upon a time you could easily get staff - now it's nigh on impossible, especially in the Tourism areas, which is what we thrive on down here.
Whether it be to EU/Brexit implications,
and also laid off due to Covid-19 that facts show that 1000's are no longer here working.
So any airline thinking of flying those Routes in or of SOU would not IMHO have any business model, especially when Ryanair are there doing it up the road at BOH.