Andrew Flintham, managing director of Tui UK and Ireland, Ryanair chief Eddie Wilson, easyJet boss Johan Lundgren, Loganair lead Jonathan Hinkles, BA chief Sean Doyle, Virgin Atlantic boss Shai Weiss, Jet2 head Steve Heapy and chief executive of Airlines UK Tim Alderslade wrote to the prime minister to voice their concerns.
It comes following the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which lead to the reintroduction of a range of international travel restrictions.
While the bosses recognised the need to take steps to contain the initial impact of the new strain, they said travel has been "singled out" with the introduction of "disproportionate" restrictions.
"Further, pre-departure and upon-arrival testing clearly add very little value to our Covid protection, but unnecessarily disrupt Christmas for families as well as businesses while severely damaging the UK travel industry," they added.
They called for all emergency testing for fully vaccinated passengers to be removed at the formal review on 20 December and for a package of bespoke economic support measures to be provided for the sector.
"We have also seen immediate problems with red list arrivals, with many customers booking hotels which either were not ready or had been double booked, requiring them to rebook and pay again," they added.
"Many people are stranded abroad through no fault of their own, due to a policy that cannot be executed properly."
They said the layering of additional travel restrictions, introduced at short notice without consultation or "discernible" strategy, have disrupted Christmas plans and "severely undermined" customer sentiment before the Christmas and New Year booking season.
"We urgently request you meet with us, to understand the problems that we and our customers are now facing because of these measures, which the transport secretary himself admitted risked ‘killing off’ the travel industry," they concluded.
