The airport saw another collapse in passenger numbers last month and has warned of action needed by 1 November to safeguard both the economy and thousands of jobs at the airport.

“We are looking to see something from the testing taskforce from 1 November,” said an airport spokesperson.

The airport’s traffic fell to 1.2 million passengers last month, down 82% year on year, with the loss of 5.5 million passengers. Quarantine measures mean 61 countries are effectively off the travel map.

Last week, the government announced the creation of a Global Travel Taskforce jointly chaired by the transport and health ministers. The taskforce will consider how testing could be introduced to safely reduce the length of quarantine.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: “The government’s Global Travel Taskforce is a great step forward, but needs to act quickly to save the millions of UK jobs that rely on aviation.

“Implementing ‘test and release’ after five days of quarantine would kick-start the economy.

“But the government could show real leadership by working with the US to develop a Common International Standard for pre-departure testing that would mean that only Covid-free passengers are allowed to travel from high risk countries.”