Tui boss believes summer holidays season to be safe
Successful vaccine programmes can yet help to save this year’s summer holiday season, the boss of Europe’s largest tour company has said.
Tui Group chief executive Friedrich Joussen told the BBC that bookings in March had hit 2.8 million.
He said that the company was expected to operate up to 75 per cent of its normal schedule for the forthcoming summer season.
Britons are set to be allowed to travel abroad for holidays from May 17 under the Government’s road map to easing coronavirus restrictions.
Pointing to the success of vaccination programmes across the UK, US and Europe, Mr Joussen told the broadcaster:
“We are still confident that we will have a decent summer.
“All medical advice that we are getting as a company says that existing vaccines are working with existing variants.
“Now they might be less efficient sometimes, but still it’s much better than not being vaccinated.”
Mr Joussen also said that he thinks a negative test result would be just as effective as a vaccine passport in preventing the spread of the virus,.
However, he admitted that the tests would need to be made cheaper in order for the strategy to be made successful.
The comments by the Tui Group chief executive come after EasyJet announced that it was “ramping up” services for the summer holiday season.
The budget airline’s chief executive, Johan Lundgren, said that he expected most major European holiday destinations to be on the government’s “green list” this summer.
The carrier expects to fly up to 20 per cent of 2019 capacity levels between April and June this year, with most countries planning to resume flying at scale during May.
EasyJet, which was hit hard by coronavirus, flew 14 per cent of its 2019 flight programme between October last year and the end of March 2021.