Industry sources suggest the best hope for the industry now is that the Omicron phase of the pandemic peaks quickly, helped by the vaccination booster campaign, and allows travel to proceed with reduced testing in the New Year.
Hopes that enhanced test requirements for travel would be reduced before January were dashed despite the government removing all countries from its red list from 4am this morning.
A leading airline source told Travel Weekly: “We’ve not hit the bottom of this cycle yet. It’s going to be challenging over Christmas and New Year and that is a huge blow. But the hope is it’s a short, sharp blow. A protracted crisis will devastate the industry.”
The government announced the removal of 11 countries from the red list on Tuesday, but not removal of the list itself, and confirmed a review of the test regime in early January. Industry leaders had urged the removal of pre-departure and post-arrival tests on vaccinated passengers before Christmas.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps confirmed: “All current testing measures remain in place and will be reviewed in the first week of January” and the government’s official announcement later confirmed: “These measures – the red list, testing for arrivals and self-isolation requirements for vaccinated travellers – will be reviewed again early in the new year on 5 January.”
It came after UK airline chiefs denounced the requirements as “haphazard and disproportionate” in a letter to Boris Johnson. They accused the government of “precious little action” in “cracking down on ‘rip-off’ testing” and demanded “a package of bespoke economic support measures”.
The source, close to talks with government, noted: “The government says it will remove the double test requirements as soon as possible. But it’s a challenge until they see infections peak [and] they’re trying to elongate the peak. So once again travel is in the forefront of measures.
“Pre-departure tests [PDTs] have a wide take up [by other countries], but the UK government has always preferred PCR tests because of the sequencing data. That makes them hard to remove. PDTs aren’t popular among returning passengers, but the inbound market would prefer pre-departure tests. So it’s complicated.
“The government is under immense pressure and it’s very fluid at the moment. Unfortunately, the wider picture takes precedence over travel. Many people outside travel think the government should have been tougher.”
Anyone considering travel overseas also has to deal with changing destination requirements. The source said: “Countries have all been doing their own thing and we don’t see that changing in the near future. The problem if we have a high prevalence of Omicron is the UK will probably go on other countries’ red lists.”
A second Aviation source agreed: “It could be short and sharp and the test requirements could be removed given Omicron is now dominant, but the government will probably play safe.”
The source suggested removing countries from the red list was “driven by hotels not giving up enough rooms” and added: “There are two concerns. One is Christmas, which would have provided an uplift. Second, what does this say to people wanting to book post-Christmas?”
The government did extend the NHS Covid Pass to 12-15-year-olds for travel from Monday. However, most children in that age group will still be denied access to countries including Spain which require visitors be double-jabbed.