When the owner of a 3D print shop on Gloucester Road received an email with a design of the ‘worst airline of the year award’, he didn’t think much of it at first and gave them a quote to make it, like he would any other customer. But once Mark Bryant found out the purpose of the award, he told them he would do it for free and altered the design slightly so that the aeroplane was directly facing a huge lump of poo.
The 'trophy' was presented to Privilege Style, a Mallorca-based airline company that has confirmed it will no longer operate flights to Rwanda after being presented with the award. Activists from Freedom from Torture presented the firm with the Bristol-made award at the carrier’s headquarters in Palma in front of media earlier this month.
The private airline had previously been contracted by the UK government to offer charter flights to Rwanda, where asylum seekers arriving in the UK would be sent for processing. The controversial UK asylum policy has come under scrutiny from human rights charities and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), resulting in a Privilege Style chartered flight destined for Rwanda in June being grounded at short notice after a court ruling.
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Since then the Spanish charter airline has faced calls and demonstrations from campaigners urging it to abandon the arrangement. Campaign group Freedom from Torture has run a targeted campaign against the airline with over 10,000 emails from members of the public, urging the airline to cut ties with the UK government’s Rwanda deportation policy.
The campaign came to a head last week when the campaigners flew to Spain to present the award, and the airline has since pulled out of the Rwanda deportation flights, the Guardian reported last week. Mr Bryant said he was "chuffed" to hear the update and hoped his business had a small part to play in the decision.
Mr Bryant, whose print shop is called the Laboratory of Things, said: “When I spoke to the guy on the phone and he explained what it was about, I told him we would do it for free. I made a few alterations to the original design so that the plane was crashing into the poo, we then printed it and sprayed it gold, it looked amazing.
“They wanted to hand it over in person to the CEO of Privilege Style and he kept changing his plans, probably because he knew they were activists. Then they finally gave him the award a couple of weeks ago and then coincidentally the airline backed out of the deportation scheme with the government.
“I believe they were the only airline in the first place that would agree to do it, so it leaves the government in a situation where there aren’t any airlines that will agree to do this work now. I like to think that we had a small part to play in their downfall."
Mr Bryant said that he felt “ecstatic” when he heard the news the airline had backed out of the scheme and his family and friends were all “chuffed”, and that his children were “really pleased" because they too thought it was a bad thing to deport people.
He added: “On the whole, the business is an eco-business, everything we make is from recycled food packaging, it’s biodegradable and it’s not shipped half-way around the world. That’s the ethos, to do something that’s beneficial locally, rather than destructive.
“Making this award, fitted in with that ethos and I think it fits in with Bristol culture as well, it's quite a centre for activism and standing up against social injustices. It was quite nice to be part of something that stands up against social injustice.”
A spokesperson from Freedom From Torture said: “Privilege Style’s decision not to fly refugees to Rwanda is a victory for people power - for the people up and down the country who took action and for the torture survivors who stood up against the UK government’s cruel ‘cash for humans’ Rwanda scheme.
“When The Laboratory of Things heard what we were planning, they went above and beyond to help us, even printing the trophy for free. The government wants to divide us and demonise refugees to distract from their mismanagement of the country: this was just one of thousands of small acts of kindness that helped win this fight, showing what can be achieved when we unite against injustice.”
In a recent statement, A Home Office spokesperson said: “We remain committed to our world-leading Migration Partnership with Rwanda, which will see those who come to the UK through dangerous, illegal and unnecessary routes relocated to Rwanda to rebuild their lives there. Rwanda is a safe and secure country with a strong track record of supporting asylum seekers and we will continue to robustly defend the partnership in the courts. We do not comment on operational matters.”
A spokesperson for Privilege Style told the PA news agency: “It’s important for us to clarify: That we will never operate the flight to Rwanda since the one scheduled in June 2022, the reason for this controversy, was suspended and never flew; that we won’t operate flights to Rwanda in the future."
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