Hopes of travel to the US restarting imminently remain limited despite intense lobbying and the UK opening up to vaccinated US arrivals last week.
A senior UK industry source told Travel Weekly: “It doesn’t bode well for travel to the US that the US is having another spike [in Covid-19 infections].” Florida and states across the US south face a fresh wave.
The White House confirmed President Biden’s administration is working on plans to require international visitors to the US to be fully vaccinated, but a spokesman insisted the government would “maintain existing travel restrictions at this point”.
More: Virgin Atlantic ‘hopeful’ of US reopening from September
Canada became the latest country to open its borders to US visitors on Monday without the US acting reciprocally. Britain opened to vaccinated US arrivals on August 2 and the EU did so in mid-June, but the US remains closed to arrivals from the UK, Ireland and the EU’s Schengen area.
The joint US-UK taskforce on transatlantic travel, announced in early June, appears to have made little progress.
The source told Travel Weekly: “The UK is trying to engage but the US won’t move. The negotiations have been entirely unfruitful. The US doesn’t really give a damn about us being able to get there. They are not as dependent on UK tourists and spending as we are on them.
“Biden’s administration just does not want to let people in. They are being incredibly strict.”
Iata director general Willie Walsh dismissed the UK-US taskforce last month as a means “to avoid making a decision”.
Eamonn Brennan, director general of European air traffic management organisation Eurocontrol, also dismissed hopes of an imminent restart, warning last month: “We don’t see any evidence that the US and EU or the UK are engaging on a restart.”
However, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr noted last week: “The North Atlantic is already back to being our most important long-haul market even though we can only sell on one side.”
More: Virgin Atlantic ‘hopeful’ of US reopening from September