The boss of Jet2holidays would support the introduction of vaccination passports as a short-term measure to get the industry flying again, but they should then be removed.
Chief executive Steve Heapy was speaking just 48 hours after the Prime Minister outlined his roadmap out of lockdown, which mentioned the possibility of a return to international travel from May 17 onwards.
Asked on a Travel Weekly webcast if he supported the idea of vaccination passports, he said: “Not particularly from a personal point of view. But if it gets us flying, then yes.”
Heapy stressed, however, that if vaccination passports were brought in they should be only temporary.
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“[They should be brought in] only as a short-term measure,” he said. “Not like when a new tax is implemented and the government says, ‘it’s an emergency tax’ – just as VAT was during the Napoleonic Wars – and it’s still around 200 years later.
“If they say they’re going to implement it for a period of time, then it should possibly be removed, not gradually extended and built upon and built upon so it’s just this massive thing in a few years.”
But he added: “I’d do almost anything to get us flying again, because if we’re flying we’re all making money; we’re protecting jobs and that’s great. So it’s going be a bit of hassle in the short term, but we just want to get flying again.”