(Adds detail, background)
LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Britain's Heathrow Airport said
that passenger numbers surged in July as the government eased
travel restrictions and a recovery was underway, but warned that
overall numbers were still down 80% on pre-pandemic levels as
many barriers remain.
Heathrow said that in July over 1.5 million travellers
passed through the airport, making it the busiest month since
March 2020, just before COVID-19 lockdowns began in Europe and
travel was essentially stopped.
The airport, the busiest in Britain, and before COVID-19 the
busiest in Europe, said that the government needed to do more to
help travel return to even close to 2019 levels.
Heathrow and airlines like British Airways have
criticised Britain for not easing travel restrictions quickly
enough despite its fast vaccine roll-out, and for complicated
rules which continue to include expensive coronavirus tests.
They want to see the cost of testing reduced and more
countries added to the government's list of low risk countries.
Heathrow also called on Britain and the United States to reach
an agreement to allow Britons to travel to the U.S.
Last month, the government allowed fully vaccinated Britons
to travel to medium risk countries without needing to quarantine
on return, boosting passenger numbers by 74% compared to July
last year.
Britain has since early August opened its borders to
fully-vaccinated people from the U.S. and European Union.
Heathrow added that U.S. carrier JetBlue was due to start
flying between London and New York later this week, in a sign of
growing confidence in travel.
(Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)