Airports boss calls for travel rules to be axed
WHILE COVID VARIANT NOW ESTABLISHED IN UK, RESTRICTIONS ARE STILL ‘DAMAGING SECTOR’
EAST Midlands Airport bosses want the government to look at scrapping the new travel restrictions now Omicron is established in the country.
Southern African countries were rapidly added to the red list and new test requirements were introduced after the highly-transmissible strain of coronavirus was detected by scientists in South Africa on November 24.
The decision to restrict flights led to complaints from African countries such as Malawi, Nigeria and South Africa.
The government also brought back PCR tests for people entering and leaving the country for all destinations.
The restrictions were described as precautionary and temporary measures to help slow down the arrival of the new variant into the UK.
Now that community transmission of Omicron has been confirmed, including cases in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, Charlie Cornish, above, chief executive officer of MAG, the company that owns East Midlands Airport, is calling for the government to “urgently review” the situation to help the struggling travel industry.
He said: “These restrictions may have slowed the arrival of Omicron but it is now transmitting in the community and the government needs urgently to review whether the rapidly reducing benefit of testing justifies the damage it is causing to consumer confidence.
“MAG, and the wider UK travel industry, can be confident of a strong revival when travel restrictions are lifted.
“All we are asking for is to be able to plan for our recovery, and to be given the same chance that every other sector was given through the domestic roadmap earlier this year.”
The company, which runs the Leicestershire airport as well as Manchester and Stansted, said passenger numbers plummeted 82 per cent when the pandemic started but in recent months were about 57 per cent up on the year before as restrictions eased.
But already the number of bookings has dropped again by up to 20 per cent thanks to the measures to counter the spread of Omicron.
Mr Cornish said: “The first half of this year tells a story of how travel restrictions held back the recovery of UK aviation, especially when compared to the rest of Europe.
“As restrictions eased, passenger numbers grew steadily at all three of our airports. The reintroduction of costly and inconvenient travel testing requirements has created further uncertainty and delayed our recovery.
“The government has talked openly about the damage these restrictions cause to the travel sector, but neither they nor the opposition have recognised the critical need to support our industry in return.
“As a business, we will always do our part to protect public health, but we also need these temporary measures to be removed when they are no longer worthwhile.”
East Midlands Airport saw demand for European holiday destinations return as restrictions eased in recent months, with numbers up 33 per cent on 2020, after its passenger operation was paused for six months at the height of travel restrictions.
While passenger numbers have not recovered as quickly as at Stansted and Manchester, the Leicestershire airport makes a lot of its money from being the UK’s largest express air cargo airport, with the cargo industry growing through the pandemic.