BA planning its own virus passport for passengers

BRITISH AIRWAYS is planning a version of a coronavirus vaccine passport to help passengers travel abroad easily – amid growing optimism the UK will be back to normal by summer.

The airline made the announcement yesterday as former government adviser Neil Ferguson – known as ‘Professor Lockdown’ – said he was ‘80 per cent sure’ the disease would be at ‘very low levels’ here within a few months.

As of yesterday, the Covid death toll

in the UK was 125,516, including 52 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The professor (pictured), who quit his role last May after he was caught breaking lockdown rules, told The Observer the government ‘still needs to monitor things very carefully’ and booster jabs may be needed in autumn due to variants.

British Airways plans to allow customers who have had two injections to register their status on its smartphone app.

Chief executive Sean

Doyle said: ‘For us, it’s quite simple. I think people who’ve been vaccinated should be able to travel without restriction, and those who have not been vaccinated should be able to travel with a negative test result.’

The travel industry has suffered a devastating year, with BA parent company IAG reporting a pre-tax loss of £6.7billion in 2020. Under road-map rules, international travel will not be allowed until May 17 at the earliest. Meanwhile, Sir Ian Diamond, head of the Office for National Statistics, caused a stir yesterday by claiming there would be another wave of cases in future despite the ‘wonderful’ vaccine rollout.

He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I have no doubt that in the autumn there will be a further wave of infections.’ In reply, former ONS number-cruncher Richard Clegg tweeted: ‘Ian Diamond is a statistician not an epidemiologist.’