Travel industry presses for tax break and passenger virus check

TESTING of travellers to enable them to sidestep quarantine and tax cuts for air travel have been urged by Abta, as it revealed 39,000 jobs in the travel industry had been lost or put at risk by the pandemic.

A survey of travel trade association Abta’s member firms found 18 per cent of jobs in the industry had been lost or placed at risk with a further 54,000 hit in related industries, giving a total of more than 93,000.

Nearly two thirds of businesses said they had either already made redun- dancies or started the process and 83 per cent said they faced further job losses if the Government failed to take further action.

They called for a testing regime that would enable travel to resume to major global trading partners.

Ministers are this week due to consider options for testing that include tests on arrival in the UK with a second five or eight days later, enabling holidaymakers and business travellers to shorten their time in quarantine in the UK. They also proposed scrapping air passenger duty – which adds between £13 and £515 to the price of tickets – until at least next summer’s holidays,

93,000 The number of jobs in the travel industry and related sectors either lost or put at risk by the pandemic, Abta says

and the creation of regional travel corridors that would allow people to go to low-risk areas within high-risk, redlisted countries.

Mark Tanzer, Abta’s chief executive, says: “With the Government’s stopstart measures, the restart of travel has not gone as hoped for the industry, and sadly businesses continue to be adversely affected and jobs are being lost at an alarming rate.

“Coming towards the end of the traditional period for peak booking, we have hit a critical point as existing government measures to support businesses begin to taper off, the consequence of which, according to this survey of Abta members will be ruinous for more people’s livelihoods.

“Travel desperately needs the Government in its next review to provide tailored support or tens of thousands more jobs will be lost.”

Abta warned the situation would get worse as 78 per cent of the businesses it had surveyed had yet to enter redundancy conversations but expected to do so in coming months. It called for the Government to consider providing recovery grants to travel agents, whose income heavily relied on commission that was only paid on departure, as well as continued furlough support beyond the proposed cut-off in October for those firms still struggling to recover.