More than 860,000 passengers passed through Heathrow in July (file)
London:
British Heathrow Airport on Tuesday renewed its call for COVID-19 testing at airports, reporting an 88% drop in passenger numbers in July due to ongoing restrictions on travel which it says strangled the British economy.
Heathrow, which is owned by an investor group including Spain’s Ferrovial, Qatar Investment Authority and China Investment Corp, said 60% of Heathrow’s route network remained stranded, forcing passengers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.
Despite thousands of Britons vacationing abroad after months of lockdowns, the government has already reinstated quarantine on arrivals from Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Bahamas and Andorra.
Last week, Finance Minister Rishi Sunak said the government would not hesitate to add more countries to its quarantine list when asked if France could join it as well.
However, Heathrow believes passenger testing at airports could safely keep roads open and restart others to help the UK’s economic recovery.
“Tens of thousands of jobs are being lost because Britain remains cut off from critical markets such as the United States, Canada and Singapore,” said Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye.
“The government can save jobs by introducing tests to cut quarantine in high-risk countries, while protecting the public from a second wave of COVID.”
More than 860,000 passengers passed through Heathrow in July – an 88% drop from the previous year, but a slight increase in traffic since the start of the pandemic, due to the UK government’s creation of the first ‘corridors de voyage ”on July 4.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
