UK Airlines Call For International Green-Light Within “Weeks” and Not May 17

LONDON – As the UK Government becomes set on announcing the roadmap to re-opening international travel, UK airlines have put more pressure on the government to get things up and running within weeks and not by May 17.

CEOs of British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Loganair, Ryanair, TUI and Virgin Atlantic as well as Airlines UK have produced a letter to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as ministers have confirmed that the ban on travel will be in place until May 17, as stated in the roadmap.

“There can be no economic recovery without aviation, and we are confident we now have the tools to enable a safe and meaningful restart to travel in May. However there can be no economic recovery without aviation, and we are confident we now have the tools to enable a safe and meaningful restart to travel in May – allowing us to return to our job of reuniting friends and family, supporting trade and business, and allowing Britons to enjoy a well-earned break again. We believe vaccinated passengers should not be subject to travel restrictions and that testing can also reduce the barriers to travel including for areas that are considered to present some risk. Only very high-risk areas would be subject to more stringent measures”
Letter from the UK airline industry to the UK Government. Extracted from: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-government-prime-minister-virgin-atlantic-british-airways-b927786.html

🗣 "I think the Prime Minister's announcement tomorrow will bring more bookings" 🛫

Travel consultant @PPaulCharles tells @chriswarburton_ he thinks more countries will be open for travel by August, as Boris Johnson is expected to give an update on holidays tomorrow 🤞 pic.twitter.com/GrN4BMANyI
— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) April 4, 2021

CEO of The PC Agency, Paul Charles spoke to BBC Radio 5 Live this morning with his estimations and predictions that more countries will open for travel by August.

This has been based on the preliminary data that he himself has been updating every week, using a traffic-light system to determine which countries may open up first.

Such a traffic light system is currently under consideration by the UK Government, and this model used by Charles could form the basis of reopening the travel sector on a safer and better basis.

If this system was put in place, and enough notice was given to travel companies when changing the colour of some countries, then this will give the sector all of the tools it needs in order to succeed as much as possible during this difficult time.

It will obviously be interesting to see what the UK Prime Minister announces tommorow as it will set out a few of the things that we will see in the release of the Global Travel Taskforce’s report on April 12.