UK airline bosses criticise hotel quarantine plan, seek support

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The bosses of airlines including
British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and easyJet criticised on
Tuesday a possible plan for mandatory quarantine in hotels for
some or all arrivals to Britain and called for a support
package.

The government is due to announce soon whether it will bring
in such measures, the country's coronavirus vaccination minister
Nadhim Zahawi said on Tuesday as he warned the public not to
book summer vacations.

Britain has suffered a sharp rise in infections and deaths
in the new year, fuelled partly by a new more highly contagious
variant of the virus first identified in southeast England.

Writing to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, airline and travel
company executives pointed to existing steps taken to curtail
the virus, including bans from some high-risk nations and a
quarantine period at home.

"Policy should be based on evidence, and we have seen no
compelling scientific evidence that introducing a policy
potentially of blanket quarantine in hotels, is necessary in
addition to measures only recently introduced," they wrote.

"We request the opportunity to discuss both an exit plan and
a bespoke support package with you urgently, at a time of your
convenience."
(Reporting by Costas Pitas. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)