(Alliance News) - Europe's busiest airport on Thursday called on the UK government to establish "air bridges" with countries with low Covid-19 infection rates, as travel curbs continued to empty skies and weigh on the travel industry in May.
Numbers from Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd on Thursday showed a 97% year-on-year plunge in May passenger numbers to just 228,000. May followed a fall of the same rate in April.
For the whole of 2020 up until the end of May, passenger numbers were 52% lower at 15.1 million.
The "grim picture" will persist, the west London airport operator said, due to the UK government's quarantine policy which calls on all arriving passengers to self-isolate for two weeks.
It's a policy that has drawn criticism from some of the biggest names in the travel industry. Ryanair Holdings PLC boss Michael O'Leary warned the measures would cost millions of tourism jobs.
Ryanair joined with rival airlines easyJet PLC and International Consolidated Airlines Group SA in starting legal proceedings.
"Heathrow is urging the government to establish 'air bridges' to low risk countries that will enable the country to restart its economy in earnest, protecting livelihoods in aviation and the sectors that rely on it," the company said.
Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye said: "Throughout this crisis, we have tried to protect front line jobs, but this is no longer sustainable, and we have now agreed a voluntary severance scheme with our union partners. While we cannot rule out further job reductions, we will continue to explore options to minimise the number of job losses."
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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