A comprehensive Covid-testing system for travellers is unlikely by October, but the government could move to a “more targeted” quarantine regime by then, according to Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer.
Moving people through an airport while carrying out Covid tests while will prove a challenge, Tanzer believes.
He also warned the industry to expect quarantine restrictions to remain in place but insisted there is a chance to reduce the self-isolation period.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, the Abta chief executive said: “We lobbied the government very hard to move away from blanket advisories to country advice, so that has been a step forward.
“Now we need to move to the next stage where confidence in testing and in the data means the government can be more accurate in its travel advice so areas that aren’t affected are not put off limits.
“The government is clearly taking a cautious approach to quarantine, and we’re not going to stand against that. What we want is its application in a more targeted way.”
Asked what he hopes to see by the time of Abta’s Travel Convention on October 14, Tanzer said: “I hope we can move from whole country to regional advice.”
However, he warned: “I don’t think we’ll have a comprehensive system of testing in place by October. The technology is there. The question is the physical process. How do you move people through an airport with a largescale testing programme without snarling up the airport?
“It’s more likely testing will be at home, with the opportunity to reduce the quarantine period.”
He conceded: “It’s not ideal. Quarantine will still be a deterrent to traveling, still a barrier for short-term, short-haul travel where you go for a business or a weekend trip. But it will be better than 14-day quarantine.
“Anything we can do to get the timeframe down through testing is going to help, but I don’t think we’ll be in a quarantine-free environment by October.”
He insisted Abta is “engaged very closely on these issues” with the Foreign Office, Home Office and Department for Transport, saying: “There are joint workshops looking at testing and the logistics of that [and] we’re in constant dialogue with the Foreign Office to try to move them to a more-regional approach to quarantine.
“This is a moving picture – different countries come in and go out [of quarantine] – so we created a site for members to check exactly what the status is for any country.”
Tanzer sees little prospect of moving away from changes in the status of destinations at short notice.
He said: “The problem is infection rates keep spiking very suddenly and the government wants to react to that rather than say ‘We’ll give it a week so everyone can take whatever measures’.
“The 36-hour period [of notice] they seem to be working to at the moment is probably what we’re going to have to live with as long as infection rates keep moving at the pace they do.”
Abta’s Travel Convention 2020 will be a one-day virtual event on October 14.