UK airlines respond to 14-day quarantine for arriving passengers announcement

May 10th, 2020

Responding to the announcement due to be made this evening by the Prime Minister of a 14-day quarantine period for passengers arriving into the UK, Tim Alderslade, CEO of Airlines UK, the industry association representing UK-registered carriers, said:

“Public health must of course be the priority and we respect the Sage advice. We all – including Government – need to adapt to the new normal but closing off air travel in this way is not the way to achieve this. Ministers are effectively telling people they can no longer travel for the foreseeable future and airlines will respond to that by grounding their operations – and that is why they require urgent additional Government support to get through this growing crisis.”

Background:

We now need to see a package of cross-industry measures announced including an urgent decision on extending the Job Retention Scheme to October, and holidays on the paying of Air Passenger Duty and charges including ATC and CAA.