[ad_1]
Aer Lingus’ Acting Chief Executive Officer has said that we must move from a “flight shame” mentality and that we should promote international travel as central to the Irish economy.
Donal Moriarty told RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor program that the narrative about Covid-19 at the policy level has affected people’s decisions not to travel.
He said that despite the introduction of the European traffic light system, the government still advises people not to travel.
Moriarty said that people have been conditioned not to travel and there has been “toxicity” around them that must end.
He said that a lot has been learned about the virus since the start of the pandemic and a number of measures have been put in place that significantly mitigate the risks of travel, such as a declaration of fitness to travel, the requirement to wear a mask and social distance in airport, and changes on board to make it safer to fly.
He said data from both the Health Service Executive and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control show that travel was a cause of less than 1% of community transmission in Ireland.
Mr. Moriarty said that Aer Lingus plans an extensive return of services starting in April and aims to be at 70% of regular operations by mid-June.
He said Aer Lingus plans to fly to most sun destinations next summer, in addition to getting US operations back to a reasonably normal level, while business trips to the UK and other cities Europeans would return to normal.
[ad_2]