The UK’s hub airport said the government’s latest travel restrictions, brought in to try to stop the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, had further “dampened” passenger confidence, with demand currently down by 60% on pre-pandemic levels despite the reopening of the US in November.

Heathrow urged the government to allow UK nationals returning from red list countries to self-isolate at home, rather than going into mandatory hotel quarantine, ahead of the Christmas holidays.

Chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: “By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas. 

“It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow.”

The airport is predicting a “slow start” to 2022 when it is forecasting around 45 million passengers for the whole year – just over 50% of Heathrow’s pre-Covid annual numbers. This is in line with Iata projections of 2022 airline passenger numbers reaching 60% of 2019 levels.

Heathrow added it would be “likely several years” before international travel returned to 2019 levels, which would only happen when all Covid travel restrictions, including testing, have been removed from all markets at both ends of the route, and there was “no risk” of new restrictions being imposed.