UK's Heathrow pleads for testing regime
A warning from Heathrow Airport to the UK government....
Support a passenger testing regime, or else strict quarantine rules will stop travel, stall the economy and cause even more job losses.
On Tuesday (August 11), Heathrow said the government should cut quarantine from 14 days to around eight days for passengers who take two tests over the course of a week.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said the cost of a test at the airport would be around $195 per person, and passengers would be expected to pay.
Holland-Kaye admitted that was not cheap, but said consumers and business travellers would be willing to accept the bill.
He also said a new testing approach would protect the UK's aviation industry, which has announced 20,000 job cuts.
In response, British minister Oliver Dowden warned there was no easy solution to allow quarantine-free travel from countries with higher infection rates.
Airports have been hit hard this year by the global health crisis,
And just as the travel industry recently got going again, fears rose of a second wave of shutdowns after the UK imposed quarantine on travellers from Spain.
Heathrow passenger numbers fell 96% in the second quarter on revenue which was down 85%.
That pushed the airport to a $1.4 billion loss for the first six months of the year.
