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Aviation will remain on its knees with Government’s overly-cautious travel plan

The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) has said that the lack of concrete opening dates, the cost of required Covid tests and the lack of detail on tiers, means that not enough people will want to travel this summer to help the industry recover.

Brian Strutton, General Secretary of BALPA, said, “This plan will keep the aviation industry on its knees. Ministers have said that the best form of support would be to get Britain flying again this summer. Today’s announcement simply won’t do that.

“The British public – more than half of whom have now received a vaccine – will not feel confident to book holidays without knowing whether they’ll be forced into quarantine on their return.

“And even for countries on the Green list travellers will need to take a PCR test at £100 per person, which is not sustainable.

“It is clear that under this plan airlines are not going to be able to recover during this summer season and will have to wait for summer 2022 for significant leisure travel to resume. Given that, I will be writing to the Chancellor today to once again make the case for significant economic support. Air travel is too important to the economy and to the hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihoods rely on it to be left to whither.”