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* Heathrow slams Britain over passenger testing
* Heathrow CEO: UK needs passenger testing fast
* British minister: there is no 'silver bullet'
(Adds detail, background, CEO comments)
By Sarah Young
LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Heathrow Airport, once Europe's
busiest airport, called on Britain to urgently back a passenger
testing regime, warning that without one, the country's strict
quarantine rules will stop travel, stall the economy and lead to
more job losses.
Heathrow said that to avoid losing a game of global
"quarantine roulette", the government should change its rules to
cut quarantine from 14 days to around eight days for passengers
who take two tests over the course of a week.
The worst public health crisis since the 1918 influenza
outbreak has wrought economic turmoil across the world and just
as the travel industry restarted there are now fears of a second
wave of shutdowns after Britain hastily imposed a quarantine on
travellers from Spain.
"The UK needs a passenger testing regime and fast," Heathrow
CEO John Holland-Kaye said. "Without it, Britain is just playing
a game of quarantine roulette."
The cost of having a coronavirus test at the airport would
be about 150 pounds ($195) per person and the passenger would be
expected to pay, Holland-Kaye told Reuters on Wednesday.
While he conceded that it was not cheap, he said consumers
and business travellers would be prepared to pay, and it would
help Britain protect its aviation industry, which has already
announced over 20,000 job cuts, and facilitate trade.
"We are an island nation - we cannot cut ourselves off from
the world for the foreseeable future," Holland-Kaye told the
BBC. "We've got to find a way of keeping people safe from a
second wave but also getting the economy going again."
Quarantine rules are in place for arrivals to Britain from
the United States, a lucrative market for Heathrow accounting
for 20% of its traffic, as well as other countries such as India
and Spain.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Responding to Heathrow's criticism, a minister said there
was no easy solution to allow quarantine-free travel from
countries with higher infection rates.
"It can incubate over a period of time so there's not a
silver bullet of just testing immediately at the border,"
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told the BBC.
But Holland-Kaye said the government was receptive to
Heathrow's double testing plan, which needs agreement that two
tests, one on arrival and one either five or eight days later,
can reduce the number of days a person spends quarantining.
"They've certainly come alive to that in the last few days
following the Spain experience with the realisation that there
needs to be an alternative," he said.
Heathrow said it was trialling testing with companies
Swissport and Collinson Group and the system could be up and
running within two weeks.
The test would add a significant cost to the cost of travel,
with Heathrow's biggest operator British Airways selling
European tickets from about 50 pounds and tickets to the United
States from about 400 pounds.
The potential extra cost illustrates the challenge to
airlines desperate to fill planes and start generating profits
again after the pandemic wiped out air travel for months.
Airports are also suffering. Heathrow passenger numbers fell
96% in the second quarter on revenue which was down 85% pushing
the airport to a 1.1 billion pound loss for the first six months
of the year. Despite the loss, the airport said its finances
remained robust.
(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Guy
Faulconbridge and Alison Williams)
