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Aviation chiefs last night accused ministers of ‘completely disassociating themselves’ from the industry over coronavirus testing at airports.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has not held an official meeting with Heathrow Airport in recent weeks despite mounting evidence of an industry in crisis.
Derek Provan, the head of Southampton, Aberdeen and Glasgow airports, said: “We are isolated as an industry and they are not interested in talking to us about testing.
‘We are trying to tell the government that we are experts in transportation, but they are completely ignoring us. Why can’t they at least have a conversation about it?
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps (pictured) has not held an official meeting with Heathrow Airport in recent weeks despite mounting evidence of an industry in crisis.
A senior aviation source said that a fortnight ago, as criticism of the quarantine policy mounted, the Department of Transportation “stopped all engagement with the industry; this was a crazy move given the severity of the crisis.”
The source added: ‘Many in the industry are very angry about the lack of commitment. It has been a wall of silence. ‘
John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s chief executive, is in regular contact with Shapps, but has spoken of his frustration at the lack of official meetings to discuss the tests.
He noted that the head of the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has had numerous official meetings with the French Minister of Transport, where tests are being carried out at the airport and the number of passengers is recovering.
Now pressure is mounting on Shapps to hold urgent crisis talks with Airlines UK and the Association of Airport Operators, the trade bodies representing Britain’s aviation sector, as well as Heathrow.
Heathrow said: “We urge all decision makers to initiate a more effective engagement to ensure that the correct and safe solution is found.”
Tim Alderslade, Chief Executive Officer of Airlines UK, said: ‘We urgently need to get passenger connectivity to key markets up and running again and that needs a smart testing regime rather than quarantine. The urgency cannot be overstated and we are wasting time ”.
The DfT said it has held regular meetings with the industry and that work is underway to “consider whether and how the tests could be used to reduce the period of self-isolation”.
Anger over British families caught in the Portugal fiasco
By John Stevens and Liz Hull for the Daily Mail
The ministers yesterday faced an angry reaction from tourists, as they were forced to admit that the government’s quarantine policy confused passengers.
Angry travelers called the quarantine policy a ‘disaster’ after rushing home from Portugal and Greece, only to have both unexpectedly remain on England’s travel broker list.
At the same time, the decentralized administrations of Scotland and Wales imposed restrictions on travelers arriving from the two countries, leading to a split in the UK.
Last night, there were doubts about whether the Government had heeded the recommendations of its Joint Biosafety Center (JBC), which advises on the threat faced by travel from foreign countries.
Downing Street did not deny that the JBC’s advice had been that travel from Portugal and the six Greek islands restricted by Wales should be subject to quarantine.
Angry travelers called the quarantine policy a ‘disaster’ after rushing home from Portugal (pictured) and Greece
Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps tried to defend himself by making a different decision than Scotland and Wales, but accepted that it created problems for travelers.
“ I realize that it creates confusion for people not to have a single rule, but we have this decentralized approach throughout the UK and I can only be responsible for the English part of it, ” he told Sky News.
The cabinet minister said that he had concluded that no changes were necessary, in part because “the positivity of the tests, for example, in Portugal actually decreased”, while the number of cases overall in Greece had decreased. .
But Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething said he had acted on the risk assessments of the government’s own advisers. Scotland and Wales imposed 14 days of isolation on arrivals from Portugal, while Scotland added Greece to its quarantine list and Wales added seven Greek islands.
A spokesperson for No. 10 said: “Ministers evaluate the data provided by JBC and JBC risk assessments are evaluated by ministers.”
Jonathan Lake from Cardiff (pictured) is on holiday with his family in Crete, which was added to the Welsh Government ‘red’ list yesterday.
Hundreds of Britons shelling out thousands of pounds for return flights as they shortened their holidays over concerns that an increase in coronavirus cases in Portugal, in particular, would lead to ministers imposing restrictions. Others canceled their breaks out of fear that they would not be able to work or that their children would go to school upon their return.
Jonathan Lake from Cardiff is on holiday with his family in Crete, which was added to the Welsh Government ‘red’ list yesterday.
He said: ‘It’s the lack of consistent messaging and management across the UK government that I’m really mad at right now.
‘People on that flight from England can go and live their life as usual, but since I live in Wales, Vaughan Gething has said,’ Fuck you, I’m going to make you feel at home for 14 days. ‘ . It’s a joke, an absolute joke. ‘
Bristol’s father, John Cushing, said he had to shorten his vacation in Portugal to overcome the quarantine that never happened and get his 12-year-old daughter Georgie back to school.
He paid £ 1,000 for flights home on Thursday after seeing reports that he may have been added to the list. He said: ‘My daughter was crying yesterday at the thought of not being able to go back to school and see her friends. The airlines have us over a barrel.
Boris Johnson insisted last night that “overwhelmingly the UK is proceeding as one.”
He said that different decentralized administrations had “different infectivity rates” and approaches to the crisis. But he added: “I think if you dig below the surface, you will find that, overwhelmingly, the UK takes the same approach.”
Bristol’s father, John Cushing (pictured right), said he had to shorten his vacation in Portugal to get over the quarantine that never happened and get his 12-year-old daughter Georgie (left) back to school .
