Britain grounded

The good news from Heathrow Airport is that passenger numbers are on the rise, with an increase in August of more than 50 per cent on the same period last year. The bad news is that this is 70 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels and the traffic through what was once Europe’s largest airline hub remains well below that of its competitors.

Heathrow is now only the 10th busiest airport in Europe. Frankfurt, Schiphol in Amsterdam and Paris are among those that have stolen a march, and business, from London’s premier airport. The UK, despite early setbacks, has not experienced any worse effects from the pandemic than France, Spain or even Germany once like-for-like statistics are taken into account.

One thing that Britain did do was to roll out the vaccine faster than elsewhere and yet many EU countries are now on a par, or even ahead, in administering the jab. Moreover, they have also opened up more readily, with fewer travel restrictions and greater ease of movement.

The aviation industry and travel companies blame the traffic light approach adopted in the UK. They say that “ever-changing restrictions”, expensive and unnecessary testing requirements and the lack of a common approach across borders have hampered the recovery.

This is handing an advantage to competitors when the UK was supposedly, post-brexit, opening to the world. We understand there is a pandemic but how are other countries managing travel much better? Changes to the rules are expected this week, with the “traffic light” system likely to be streamlined. For the hard-pressed aviation industry they cannot come soon enough.