Government overseeing demise of UK aviation, airport boss warns

Leading Welsh Tory calls for testing for arriving travellers – but only at Cardiff airport

Last call: a soon-to-be-scrapped British Airways Boeing 747 at Cardiff airport (Simon Calder)

The government is “overseeing the demise of UK aviation” with policies designed to suppress travel, a leading airport boss has said.

Derek Provan, chief executive of AGS Airports – comprising Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton – told the BBC that the rate of job losses among airline and airport staff was faster than during the demise of the coal industry in the 1980s.

Mr Provan said: “That’s surely not an accolade any government would like to have.”

The Department for Transport (DfT) has rejected the criticism. A spokesperson said: “We have provided unprecedented support to the aviation industry.”

At present the Foreign Office warns against travel to more than 160 countries, with Portugal likely to join the list later today.

Arriving passengers from all the “no-go” countries are obliged to self-isolate for two weeks.

The bosses of Virgin Atlantic and Heathrow Airport have warned that the current policies, which have the effect of suppressing air travel, demanded “leadership” on testing arriving passengers.

Many countries require tests before or after flights, but the UK government maintains there is no viable alternative to 14 days of quarantine.

But Wales is now testing passengers who have arrived from the Greek island of Zante, where a hotspot of cases among holidaymakers has been identified. Arriving travellers are tested within two days of arrival, and again eight days after landing.

John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow Airport, said: “The [UK] government has been very cautious, really focusing on the health crisis and yet we have an unemployment crisis looming.”

Virgin Atlantic’s chief executive, Shai Weiss, said that the transatlantic aviation market must re-start or “we won’t see a rebound of aviation”.

He said: “This will stall the economic recovery of the UK, which of course is already in recession.”

Public Health Wales has introduced the first “regional” quarantine policy, requiring self-isolation from holidaymakers arriving back from the island of Zante but not from elsewhere in Greece.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said that the UK does not have access to sufficient data to allow for anything other than a go/no-go decision.

The government says it is taking “early action on airport slots, loans, tax deferrals, and paying people’s wages through the furlough scheme”.

The DfT spokesperson said: “While protecting public health remains our priority, we are working closely with experts to keep our approach to quarantine under constant review.” France and Germany are already using testing at airports for passengers arriving from countries with a higher infection rate.

Meanwhile a leading Welsh Tory has called on the Labour administration in Cardiff to instigate routine testing at the capital’s airport.

Andrew R T Davies, former leader of the Conservative Party in Wales, tweeted: “Given the (sadly) small numbers of people that come through the Welsh Government-owned Cardiff Airport, Labour’s [health minister] Vaughan Gething must get his act together and set up testing stations on site for all incoming passengers.

“No more excuses, get it done minister!”

Mr Davies said nothing about the wider UK policy.