Although at one point the service was granted a licence to operate until 1994, the Secretary of State for Transport intervened and revoked the licence with effect from February 1986—by which time the continued existence of the link had become "a highly controversial issue" debated by Members of Parliament, airlines, airport operators, local authorities and many other interest groups.

Large airlines such as British Caledonian and Dan-Air were based at Gatwick and wanted better links with Heathrow for the benefit of their passengers and staff.

National transport policy suggested that a motorway would be built between Gatwick and Heathrow at some time in the future, so an air shuttle was considered to be a possible temporary solution.

Their rationale was that a quick, high-frequency shuttle would "effectively link the two airports' flight networks" and allow Gatwick and Heathrow "to operate in tandem".

[10] These arguments—along with claims that international interlining traffic would be won from rival European airports such as Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol; that the British government's transport and economic policies treated Gatwick and Heathrow as a single entity; and the flight planners' demonstration that the route chosen for Airlink would have "the least possible impact" on residential areas below the flightpath—helped to persuade the Civil Aviation Authority to allow the service to start.

[7] Pending the completion of the southern section of the M25 motorway,[6][8] and after a public hearing,[10] the joint venture company was given a temporary one-year licence to run the service.

[7] Unlike its Westward Airways predecessor, Airlink had its own departure and arrival gates and boarding ramps at both airports.

[note 3] This condition was varied again in November 1985: the helicopter link had to stop by 7 February 1986 if its licence had not already run out as a result of the Secretary of State for Transport's amendment.

[10] Their argument was that coaches should have been used to connect the airports, whereas BAA claimed "their important passengers were accustomed to helicopters and would not take kindly to a mere bus.

Sir Adam Thomson, the chairman of British Caledonian, claimed that Ridley's decision not to renew the licence cost the company £4 million at a time when it was suffering financial problems.

[14] In a parliamentary debate in May 1986, Nicholas Soames, then the Member of Parliament for Crawley (which covered Gatwick Airport), claimed that "nearly half the existing passengers [would] in future avoid London", and that their choice of alternative carriers or transport methods would cost the airline industry several million pounds.