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(Adds minister and health official comments)
LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Britain's airlines and holiday
companies are planning a "day of action" on Wednesday to ramp up
pressure on the government to ease travel restrictions, with
just weeks to go before the start of the peak summer season.
Travel companies, whose finances have been stretched to
breaking point during the pandemic, are desperate to avoid
another summer lost to COVID-19. But with Britain's strict
quarantine requirements still in place that now looks likely.
As the clock ticks down to July, Europe's biggest airline
Ryanair and Manchester Airports Group on Thursday
launched legal action to try to get the government to ease the
rules before the industry's most profitable season starts.
On Wednesday, June 23, pilots, cabin crew and travel agents
will gather in Westminster, central London, and at airports
across Britain to try to drum up support.
Britain's aviation industry has been harder hit by the
pandemic than its European peers, according to data published by
pilots trade union BALPA on Sunday.
That showed daily arrivals and departures into the United
Kingdom were down 73% on an average day earlier this month
compared to before the pandemic, the biggest drop in Europe.
Spain, Greece and France were down less than 60%.
UK airports were also badly affected, with traffic in and
out of London's second busiest airport Gatwick down 92%,
according to the data.
The government had to balance the risks of foreign holidays
bringing new variants of the virus into Britain, justice
minister Robert Buckland told the BBC. Public Health England
official Susan Hopkins said people should predominantly holiday
at home this summer while the population is vaccinated.
But time is running out for the industry, said the union.
"There is no time to hide behind task forces and reviews,"
said BALPA general secretary Brian Strutton.
"BALPA is demanding that the UK Government gets its act
together and opens the U.S. routes and European holiday travel
destinations that it has blocked with no published evidence at
all."
Over 45,000 jobs have already been lost in UK aviation, with
estimates suggesting that 860,000 aviation, travel and tourism
jobs are being sustained only by government furlough schemes.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, additional reporting by William
James
Editing by Mark Potter and Louise Heavens)
