World’s Leading Air Travel Group Oppose 14-Day Quarantines in UK and Spain For Arriving Flight Passengers

THE world’s leading air travel group is opposing 14-day quarantines in the UK and Spain for arriving flight passengers.

Alexandre De Juniac, chief executive for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that his members and the whole industry is utterly against the introduction of the restrictive measures.

“International travel cannot restart under such conditions,” De Juniac said, citing a study that found 59 per cent of people wouldn’t fly in such circumstances.

“A globally coordinated bio-security system including temperature checks and contact tracing would manage the risk,” he added.

Meanwhile demand for air travel will lag behind pre-coronavirus forecasts for at least five more years, according to the latest projections from IATA.

Global traffic, or the number of passengers carried times the distance flown, will still be about 10 per cent below original estimates for 2025, according to Brian Pearce, the trade group’s chief economist.

Traffic next year will be down between a third and two-fifths from projections made prior to the pandemic, according to IATA, which doesn’t see travel recovering to last year’s levels until 2023 at the earliest.

Pearce said he expected a rebound in demand to come about two years after an upturn in GDP, partly due to the increased inconvenience of travel.

IATA said underlying drivers behind a decades-long boom in air travel – chiefly improved living standards in emerging markets – remain solid and will ultimately spur demand.