The boss of Virgin Atlantic is hopeful that Covid testing for the fully-vaccinated could be removed on UK-US routes by the beginning of 2022.
Speaking to Travel Weekly ahead of the airline’s first UK-US departure since the US lifted restrictions on Brits after 602 days, chief executive Shai Weiss noted the importance of “frictionless travel” to aviation’s bounce-back from Covid.
Weiss said bookings for the Easter and summer were currently about 60-70% of 2019 levels, which is below the airline’s target of 80%, but was confident that would rise when the testing burden is reduced.
He stressed the importance of a move to “frictionless travel”, meaning removing the need for Covid tests for the fully-vaccinated between the UK and US, in aviation’s recovery. Currently, fully-vaccinated UK travellers to the US must take a lateral flow antigen test under video supervision and test negative to be allowed entry.
“We have to think about how we get back to a position of no testing,” said Weiss. “We have vaccines and medicines now, so overall the direction of travel is clear. This [Covid] is never going to go away. We are going to go into an endemic situation, but we must learn to live with the virus unfortunately.
“We have to rely on vaccines to get back to frictionless travel. It could be possible by the beginning of next year.”
Virgin Atlantic and British Airways set aside a long-standing rivalry to embark on a dual take-off from Heathrow to New York JFK on Monday, November 8 – to celebrate the return of mass travel to the US from the UK.
Weiss said the airlines would continue to work together as they lobby for frictionless travel, and said their arguments are “always based on science” and “have been data-led throughout the pandemic”.
He told Travel Weekly: “During the pandemic we’ve all learned that Covid is bigger than any individual, bigger than any company and bigger than any country. We’ve learned that co-operation and collaboration is hugely important. This is a day of celebration.”
However, he said the two airlines thrived on their commercial rivalry as he championed the importance of competition in the aviation sector.
“As soon as the planes land in the US, it’s back on,” he said. “Competition makes us better. There’s a reason why the UK aviation industry is regarded as the best in the world. It’s because of the competition.”
Weiss hailed the importance of UK-US travel to the aviation sector, and his company, noting that 60% of Virgin’s capacity is to the US. He also stressed the wider economic importance of the links.
“There’s $70 billion of trade between these two countries and without connectivity it wouldn’t be possible to connect business partners, or connect families and loved ones,” he said.