London’s Heathrow is no longer Europe’s busiest airport due to the British government lagging behind on introducing passenger testing for the CCP virus, according to Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye.
In the report on the nine months up to the end of September Holland-Kaye said, “Britain is falling behind because we’ve been too slow to embrace passenger testing.”
“European leaders acted quicker and now their economies are reaping the benefits,” he added.
Travel Restrictions
Commercial aviation plunged this year as governments implemented travel restrictions and passengers canceled flights amid efforts to control the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus.Some countries have sought to revive the market by implementing passenger testing regimes that reduce or eliminate the need for quarantines.
Despite pressure from the travel industry on Britain to introduce a testing regime to replace quarantine rules the country still requires travelers from most countries to self-isolate for 14 days after arrival, making most business and leisure travel impractical.
Quarantine
The aim is to cut in half quarantine times for passengers arriving from virus hot spots.That model is sometimes called “test and release.”
Shapps also said the government was working on “schemes with partner countries to establish whether self-isolation could take place before departure.”
He acknowledged the industry’s call for testing at borders and explained why the government had not introduced it.
“We have not done so,” he said, “because the Chief Medical Officer has made clear that it wouldn’t capture sufficient information on those who are asymptomatically carrying the virus.”
While the 14-day quarantine rules for passengers arriving from high-risk countries remain in place, Heathrow has now hosted some passenger testing.
Pre-Tax Losses
The airport reported a pre-tax loss of £1.52 billion ($1.97 billion) for the first nine months of the year, compared with a loss of £76 million in the same period of 2019. Revenue plunged 59 percent to £2.3 billion.The number of passengers using Heathrow during those nine months fell 69 percent to 19 million.
“Governments must take firm action to avert this impending economic and labour catastrophe,” he said.
“They must step forward with additional financial relief measures. And they must use systematic COVID-19 testing to safely re-open borders without quarantine,” he added.
