The UK’s decision to introduce a quarantine requirement for air, sea, and other arrivals from June, has been met with retaliation by those in the aviation industry.
British Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, told parliament that the controversial scheme would include all arrivals from abroad but added it could be modified to exclude countries where the Covid-19 infection rate was below the rate of one.
Shapps also mentioned that ‘air bridges’ could be introduced to enable people from countries that have achieved lower levels of coronavirus infection to come to the country.
Responding to the announcement of the details for the 14-day quarantine period, Karen Dee, Chief Executive of the Airport Operators Association (AOA) said:
“We are disappointed that the Government has decided to go ahead with a simplistic blanket approach to quarantining all arrivals, without any consultation with industry. This threatens to have very serious economic and social consequences, not just in aviation but in all sectors relying on aviation connectivity, without resulting in notably better public health outcomes than a more targeted approach. This must be reviewed more frequently than every three weeks.”
Dee added that quarantine restrictions would result in a further drop in demand for flights with passengers unwilling to fly if they had to quarantine on arrival in the UK. This will in turn hamper the travel of those key workers who have now been exempted.
“As our neighbours and key trading partners move towards a science-led, risk-based approach, the UK should do so as soon as possible, or risk being left behind. Industry proposals such as air bridges would facilitate travel from low-risk countries and protect the public from high-risk arrivals. This would enable the restart of aviation and support the UK’s economic recovery. Crucially, this would also give us time to get a testing regime in place for arriving passengers like Greece, Iceland and other countries are doing, as the next step to returning to a new normal.”
She concluded that, “In the meantime, the Chancellor needs to provide further financial and business support to airports and travel operators to help the industry get through this prolonged period with limited to no revenue and ensure the sector is ready to restart in support of the economic recovery.”
