Health secretary Javid told the Commons a further update on the UK’s travel rules would follow from transport secretary Grant Shapps by 1 October, while Johnson declined to offer any further thoughts on the travel landscape at a Downing Street Covid briefing later in the day.
Javid, though, did hint the government’s likely course of action would be to ease the Day 2 PCR test requirement for fully vaccinated arrivals into the UK.
In a subsequent letter to Downing Street, the bosses of 13 key organisations – including Abta, the Advantage Travel Partnership and Airlines UK – have urged the government to adopt a “common sense testing regime”.
It said: “We are calling on you to put an end to the current testing regime which is placing an unnecessary and unfair burden on vaccinated travellers.
“At present, the UK operates the most restrictive regime of any of our competitor countries, despite NHS Track and Trace statistics showing that there is no difference in the risk of returning travellers testing positive compared to community transmission rates, and despite the huge success of our domestic vaccination programme.”
The letter pointed out most EU countries, including France and Spain, do not require testing for vaccinated passengers, but a vaccinated passenger returning or travelling to the UK must still purchase a PCR test that costs on average £75.
“For a family of four, this reaches a staggering £300 on testing alone. This is in addition to a pre-departure test that must be taken before returning home.”
The government had been tipped to make a statement on PCR testing on Tuesday. However, health secretary Sajid Javid said revised rules would be announced on 1 October. He gave strong hints the PCR requirement would then be axed.
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The letter added: “Visiting friends and family abroad and in the UK should not just be the preserve of those that can afford the staggering cost of testing on top of other travel costs. It simply cannot be right that UK citizens have to pay a testing premium to travel compared to those living in or visiting other European countries.”
The letter also spelled out aviation’s contribution to UK coffers. It said in 2019 the UK was the third largest national market for air travel following the US and China.
“Aviation contributed to 4.5% of the country’s GDP (compared to 2.5% for Germany), supported 1.6 million jobs and enabled over £600 billion in exports – but so much of that momentum has been lost.”
