3 yıl önce

Airlines, holiday firms ramp up pressure on Britain to ease travel rules

Britain's airlines and holiday companies are planning a "day of action" on Wednesday to exert pressure on the UK government to ease travel restrictions, with just weeks to go before the start of the peak summer season.

Reuters

An aircraft takes off at Heathrow Airport amid the spread of the coronavirus disease pandemic in London, Britain, February 4, 2021.

Travel companies, whose finances have been stretched to breaking point during the pandemic, are desperate to avoid another summer lost to Covid-19.

But with Britain's strict quarantine requirements still in place that now looks likely.

On Wednesday, June 23, pilots, cabin crew and travel agents will gather in Westminster, central London, and at airports across Britain to try to drum up support for easing.

As the clock ticks down to July, Europe's biggest airline Ryanair and Manchester Airports Group on Thursday launched legal action to try to get the government to ease the rules before the industry's most profitable season starts.

Britain's aviation industry has been harder hit by the pandemic than its European peers, according to data published by pilots trade union BALPA on Sunday.

Daily arrivals, departures sharply down

The data showed daily arrivals and departures into the United Kingdom were down 73 percent on an average day earlier this month compared to before the pandemic, the biggest drop in Europe. Spain, Greece and France were down less than 60 percent.

UK airports were also badly affected, with traffic in and out of London's second busiest airport Gatwick down 92 percent, according to the data.

The government had to balance the risks of foreign holidays bringing new variants of the virus into Britain, justice minister Robert Buckland told the UK's state broadcaster the BBC.

Public Health England official Susan Hopkins said people should predominantly holiday at home this summer while the population is vaccinated.

But time is running out for the industry, said the union.

"There is no time to hide behind task forces and reviews," said BALPA general secretary Brian Strutton.

"BALPA is demanding that the UK Government gets its act together and opens the U.S. routes and European holiday travel destinations that it has blocked with no published evidence at all."

Over 45,000 jobs have already been lost in UK aviation, with estimates suggesting that 860,000 aviation, travel and tourism jobs are being sustained only by government furlough schemes.