Industry anger grows as govt accused of ‘overseeing the demise of aviation’
Aviation officials have renewed their assault on the government’s catch-all approach to quarantine and accused ministers of ‘overseeing the demise of UK aviation’.
Amid rising anger and frustration, airline officials have said the government is simply not listening to the concerns of the sector.
Derek Provan, chief executive of AGS Airports, which runs Southampton, Aberdeen and Glasgow, said calls for regional travel corridors and testing at airports were being ignored.
"We are not getting any response back from the government," he said.
The refusal to look at airport testing – as France and Germany have done – was effectively strangling the industry and ‘overseeing the demise of UK aviation’, he said.
He added the sector was seeing more job losses than the demise of the coal industry in the 1980s.
"That’s surely not an accolade any government would like to have," he told the BBC.
Shai Weiss, chief executive of Virgin Atlantic, said testing was "essential" to help kick-start the economy.
"Without free and fast travel with the US, we won’t see a rebound of aviation and this will stall the economic recovery of the UK, which of course is already in recession," he said.
Heathrow Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye said the government was ignoring the growing economic crisis.
"I think the government has been very cautious, really focusing on the health crisis and yet we have an unemployment crisis looming," he said.
"The UK government needs to get behind testing as an alternative to quarantine to save millions of jobs in this country."
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