British Airways’ boss has blasted the government’s traffic lights scheme as “too complicated”.
Writing in The Sun, Sean Doyle said current travel restrictions were too harsh and Britons should be allowed to benefit from the vaccination programme by travelling abroad.
“We’re glad the government’s introduced a travel traffic light system, but it’s too complicated,” he said.
“If you’ve been vaccinated and you are coming back home from a low-risk ‘green’ country where there’s also high rate of vaccination and a low rate of infection, you shouldn’t have to take an expensive test as the government demands. You should be allowed to travel without restriction.”
He said Greece, Portugal and Cyprus were taking this stance, “with others likely to follow”.
For those who had not been vaccinated, science proved a single rapid Covid test “can detect almost all cases”, he said.
Doyle also called for “swift action” on vaccine passports, which are able to hold vaccination and testing certificates.
“We’ve already developed these, but we need the government to find a way to link an NHS record of proof of vaccination to these clever apps so there’s no hold up getting out of or coming back into the country.”
He warned: “The future remains uncertain for our industry and my fear is that if the government doesn’t make safe travel simpler, there will be more job losses and more businesses will be lost.”