24 Jun 2021

Businesses join in solidarity for travel industry

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Businesses and employees from the West Midlands joined in solidarity to speak up for travel and urge the UK Government to reinstate a risk-based managed approach around a safe restart of international travel in time for summer.

A gathering took place at Birmingham Airport yesterday as part of the national 'Travel Day of Action ' campaign.

Parallel events took place across the UK, where employees and businesses representing aviation and travel industries called on Government to expand the Green list of countries in line with the evidence to make restrictions more proportionate, and to rethink the financial support offered to our sector, specifically by extending the furlough scheme beyond the current September cut off.

The Travel Day of Action comes ahead of the Government 's forthcoming traffic light review and reports of Government data showing that fewer than one in 200 travellers are testing positive on their return and no “variants of concern ” were detected from passengers returning from amber list countries.

Joining Birmingham Airport staff in support for the reinstatement of travel were representatives from the local tourism attractions, destination marketing organisations, Coventry City of Culture Trust, trade unions, travel agents, airlines, handling agents and the three Chambers of Commerce for Greater Birmingham, the Black Country and Coventry.

The pandemic has been a catastrophe for the travel industry and Birmingham Airport alike.

The airport is only currently serving one country on the Green traffic light list (Gibraltar), with all others on the restrictive Amber list, and although airlines are serving a handful of Amber countries, volumes are small and customer confidence has hit an all-time low.

Birmingham Airport is operating at passenger levels 95 per cent less than in 2019 and without an urgent review of the methodology, which should include UK vaccinated travellers being able to travel without quarantine restrictions and expensive testing, another summer will be lost.

Speaking at the event, Nick Barton, Birmingham Airport 's chief executive said: “Whilst most of Europe and the US have now eased air travel restrictions, Britain 's businesses are losing out because they can 't fly to clients overseas to maintain equipment or close deals in person, nor can they afford to quarantine on return. The UK is becoming an outlier to the rest of Europe, undermining Global Britain 's aspirations.

“The Government 's Traffic Light System has failed to deliver a meaningful restart to international travel it promised and is ignoring the very risk-based system they designed.

“International travel can return safely in a risk managed way by properly implementing the Global Travel Taskforce 's plan for a traffic-light system. With more than half the population now having received their second vaccine, this must be factored into decision making rather than taking a broad-brush approach.

“We also call on Government to rethink the current requirements for testing, which is totally unaffordable for most hardworking people, and to extend the furlough scheme beyond the September cut off for our sector, which has been hardest hit by the pandemic. ”

Raj Kandola, head of policy at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, attended the gathering, and to urged government to take decisive action.

He said: “The Chamber was delighted to support the Travel Day of Action alongside Birmingham Airport and a host of local stakeholders.

“The Day of Action underlined the need for the Government to take decisive action and come up with a workable plan for international travel otherwise those within the industry will continue to suffer incredible hardships.

“Birmingham Airport is an anchor institution in our region which prior to the pandemic contributed billions to the regional economy, supported thousands of jobs across the region and played a vital role in promoting the West Midlands as a destination of choice for millions of international tourists.

“We need the Government to come up with a robust strategy which will give businesses and consumers the confidence they need to start making overseas trips to safe destinations across the globe otherwise the notion of 'Global Britain ' will be severely undermined and quickly lose any notion of credibility. ”

Pictured: Nick Barton (right) with businesses standing in solidarity