Economy will lose £ 32m a day, aviation report says

RESTRICTIONS ON travel to the USA will cost the UK economy at least £ 11bn this year, according to a report commissioned by leading aviation industry firms.

Some £ 32m will be wiped from UK GDP each day from next month if constraints aimed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic remain in place, the study has suggested.

The analysis found that the total capacity of flights planned between the UK and the US this month is about 85 per cent down on September last year.

The airline trade body, Airlines UK, British Airways’ owner IAG, Heathrow Airport and an aviation services firm, Collinson, commissioned a consultancy, York Aviation, to carry out the research.

People arriving in the UK from the US are required to self- isolate for 14 days, while the US will not allow foreigners to enter if they have been in the UK during the previous 14 days.

Heathrow’s chief executive John Holland- Kaye said the report’s findings are “a stark warning that action is needed immediately to safely open up connections with our key trading partners in the US”.

He has repeatedly called for the UK Government to reduce the quarantine requirements for passengers who pay for coronavirus tests and get negative results.

He said: “We can start with flights to New York, a city where infection rates are now lower than here, and which is the UK’s most valuable route.

“Testing in private labs, both pre- flight and on arrival, would ensure that there is no risk of importing Covid and could pave the way to a common international standard for aviation testing.”

The US is the UK’s biggest market for inbound travellers, with nearly four million visits in 2019. Arrivals from the US spent a total of £ 3.8bn last year, but that is expected to fall by £ 3.1bn in 2020, according to the report.

The analysis stated that the average length of each trip is seven days, meaning the UK’s quarantine rules “effectively lock these high- spending visitors out of the UK”.