About

Team size: Around 20

Major legal advisers: Freshfields, BCLP, Pinsent Masons, Eversheds, Towerhouse Consulting, Owen White, Allen & Overy

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last year?

One of the most important projects was our appeal to the Supreme Court against the Court of Appeal’s decision to suspend the Airport National Policy Statement, which had the effect of stopping Heathrow expansion. We won the appeal with a favourable decision from the Supreme Court in December 2020.

What were the main steps you took to protect the business once it became clear we were in the midst of an unprecedented challenge?

The first objective was to ensure we put in place the following: A legal strategy to protect the business; a robust cost protection plan; a revenue generation plan; a people strategy; a financing plan; a procurement and supply chain plan; a strategy on Government policies that affect our business; focus on mitigations and controls in our risk register; an external and internal communications plan and ensure continuous board, shareholder and management engagement.

Protecting the business has often meant companies having to make tough decisions. How were you able to assist the employees of the company get through the difficult period of the first lockdown?

At all stages, we ensure that our people were treated with respect and honesty while placing their well-being and safety as a top priority. We also arranged frequent sessions and check-ins to engage and communicate with employees, offered help where there was financial stress and talked through prioritisation and what that means when workloads are heavy.

Did the Brexit deal reached at the end of 2020 give you and your business greater clarity for the future?

Yes, it ended the uncertainty as to whether it would be a hard or soft Brexit. Our business has been the front door to international travel and we had to prepare and assist the Government’s Border Force to reduce the queue times that could have been caused by a hard Brexit. It helped that we had been planning for Brexit for more than two years. On the wider front, there has been greater clarity now that we know the Brexit deal. With that said, Covid has overtaken Brexit in terms of uncertainty for international travel, and that is the area that we have been grappling with.