As part of his LLB study, Thomas developed a keen interest in the sphere of Commercial Law, with a particular focus on Insolvency Law and the procedures that are already in place within the United Kingdom’s legal framework. Thomas graduated with a First Class LLB (Hons) in July 2024, having taken a focus on Commercial Law subjects across his third year and decided to continue with the School of Law and Social Justice as part of their LLM programme. This provided an opportunity to develop critical analysis on the impact of Insolvency on the aviation sector of the United Kingdom.
As part of his research dissertation for the LLM programme, Thomas undertook a study on ‘Insolvency Procedures and the Airline Industry of the United Kingdom: In Desperate Need of Reform?’ which sought to consider if the current policy measures are sufficient to deal with aviation insolvency for the domestic airline industry.
Project Summary
Thomas has expanded from the scope of his LLM research to a comparison of Aviation Insolvency procedures across the world, under the title of ‘An analysis of Insolvency Procedures and Mechanisms in the Global Aviation Industry: does Part 26(a) offer a new opportunity for airlines to restructure or do additional measures need to be established to deal with insolvencies?’. Whilst the United Kingdom is becoming a growing market of Aviation Insolvency Law, an American domination remains – with emerging legal markets for Insolvency in the EU and Australia also providing competition to English procedures.
Thomas’ research into the sector also considers the impact of state intervention as a method of maintaining airlines – with this being a notable process undertaken in both the European and Middle East regions. Elsewhere, an attempt to use mergers in the United States of America as an alternative to undergoing bankruptcy procedures when an airline is in financial peril is an important element that is to be considered as a potential alternative to airlines becoming insolvent.
Additional consideration is also being given towards the concept of continued trading through insolvency, something that has widely been refuted by the Insolvency Service as a viable option for recent insolvencies in the United Kingdom but has been used effectively in other worldwide jurisdictions when deemed in the national interest to do so.
Thomas has also developed a theory of ‘salvage’ – an extension of the existing Insolvency Procedures in the United Kingdom. Whilst this would apply to airlines – allowing them to continue to operate and be broken up to maintain financially viable elements (even sharing these across multiple private entities) – it also has the potential to work across other sectors of the economy. This process would exist as a measure of last resort.