MAG chief: 'No sign govt wants to avoid further job losses'

At London Stansted, more than 280,000 passengers passed through its terminal in just one weekend. This year, the figure will be less than a third of that.

At Manchester, 12 months ago, more than 115,000 people flew in a single day. A year on, we will be lucky to welcome 25,000 travellers.

The impact of Covid-19, and quarantine restrictions, on the travel industry is clear for all to see. It is evident in the tens of thousands of job losses that have already been announced and the millions of holidays already cancelled.

If reports are to be believed, our government was due to debate taking a more realistic and passenger-friendly approach to quarantine decisions on Monday (24 August) at its Covid committee.

But this meeting didn’t happen, and we hear it’s now due to happen today (Thursday 27 August). It’s not the first time a critical decision in this area has been put off, with no credible explanation for the delay.

Indeed throughout the pandemic, there has been no evidence of any recognition from the government of the need to protect the travel industry and enable it to recover from what is undoubtedly the biggest crisis it has ever faced.

This is an industry that collectively supports around 2 million jobs, with MAG [Manchester Airports Group] alone making an economic contribution of £8.2 billion to the UK each year.

We see no signs that it wants to avoid further jobs losses, or an appreciation of the critical role airports will have in the economic revival of regions across the country as we gingerly emerge from this crippling pandemic.

This in stark contrast to the approach we have seen taken by numerous governments around the world, whose decisive action to protect their aviation sectors makes clear how much value they attach to them.

From the very start of this pandemic, we have appealed for a support package for airports. But our request for business rates relief was ignored, despite lockdown.

By contrast, Germany has secured EU state aid approval, in order to compensate airports for lost revenue and protect their futures.

The failure to recognise the need for direct financial support was disappointing to say the least, but perhaps not surprising when you consider our government already places its airports at a competitive disadvantage by levying some of the highest passenger taxes in the world.

But the impact of this decision has been amplified many times over by its sluggish, chaotic and illogical approach to travel restrictions, an area where we have watched other nations move quickly and decisively while our government has remained in its own decision-making lockdown.

Having initially imposed blanket quarantine rules on all destinations, we eventually saw “travel corridors” agreed with our most important tourism markets, following a period of stubborn procrastination, which is yet another example of this cabinet’s inability to rise above division, put their heads down and agree a common-sense answer.