Air travel yet to meaningfully restart, says UK industry

International travel from the UK is yet to restart in a "meaningful" way despite the easing of some restrictions, the industry says.

Trade group Airlines UK said bookings had failed to recover due to the "frustrating" traffic light system and costly testing requirements.

It added that consumer confidence would remain weak without change.

The comments came as Heathrow warned it expects to see a further fall in passenger numbers in 2021.

The airport, which was Europe's busiest before the pandemic, welcomed just four million passengers in the first six months of the year - a total that it would have taken just 18 days to reach in 2019.

In a letter to the transport secretary Grant Shapps, Airlines UK noted that passenger bookings in the rest of Europe had recovered to 50% of pre-crisis levels in June, compared to just 16% in the UK.

Meanwhile, US visitor numbers to the UK are still only 20% of 2019 levels, whereas to the EU they are around 65%.

Blaming the traffic light system, the trade group said spending on travel was now back at "the same fraught position as last year".

It cited the decision to remove Portugal from the green list of Covid-safe destinations, closely followed by the Balearics, both within a month of their initial inclusion.

It also criticised the decision to maintain quarantine rules for arrivals from France, while removing them for travellers from all other amber list destinations.

"These represent examples of the frustrating, last-minute and opaque decision-making that has been a mainstay of the [traffic light] system so far," the group wrote.

"[There has also been] a refusal to make more proportionate travel restrictions from low-risk countries even as nightclubs open in England - without any restrictions."

The government says the traffic light system helps to stop new Covid variants from being brought into the UK.

But in its results for the six months to 30 June, Heathrow also criticised the rules for creating unreasonable costs and conditions for travellers.

Currently anyone who is not fully vaccinated, or who was fully vaccinated outside the UK, has to pay for three tests - one before arriving in England, and tests on day two and day eight after arrival - and quarantine for 10 days on their return from amber list countries such as Spain. They also have the option of ending quarantine early by paying for a test under the Test and Release scheme on day five.

Heathrow now believes just 21.5 million passengers will travel through the airport in 2021, down from 22.1 million in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, and down from almost 90 million in 2019.

The airport said its cumulative losses from Covid now stood at some £2.9bn.

"The UK is emerging from the worst effects of the health pandemic, but is falling behind its EU rivals in international trade by being slow to remove restrictions," said Heathrow boss John Holland-Kaye.

"Replacing PCR tests with lateral flow tests and opening up to EU and US vaccinated travellers at the end of July will start to get Britain's economic recovery off the ground."

In separate results, Ryanair said it had seen a surge in summer bookings in the past few weeks, but it said many people were booking at the last minute amid fears travel rules could change.

The airline's chief financial officer, Neil Sorahan, said the EU's digital Covid certificate, which allows a person's vaccination status to be recognised across the whole bloc, had boosted bookings.

"I think the European policy has worked an awful lot better than in the UK," he told the BBC's Today programme.

"It's given more certainty, it's led to more steady green lists all across Europe. The UK has been a little bit more haphazard with what's on the green list, what's on the amber list."

The carrier now expects to fly 90-100 million passengers this financial year - up from the lower end of a previously forecast range of 80-100 million.

But that is still way off the 148.6 million it flew in 2019.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said: "Pricing remains below pre Covid-19 levels and there will continue to be great value for Ryanair guests travelling this summer as we focus on recovering traffic, jobs and tourism across our European network.

"Based on current (close-in) bookings, we expect traffic to rise from over five million in June to almost nine million in July, and over 10 million in August, as long as there are no further Covid setbacks in Europe."