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The airlines are meeting with the men from the ministry today. I would not expect instant U turns on things like PCR testing, but we must hope the bods do our bidding as the share holders and make it blunt plain and clear that the present arrangements to return to flying have significant problems and need significant revision. Just zero rating covid tests would be a start.

Scratching my head trying to understand where the fall is coming from. Can only think that there were expectations of a more advanced reopening despite what the road map says. Suspect we will be waiting until May 17th for a return to sp increase. Also I suspect plenty or rights sellers dumping thinking the top has been seen. My top is aiming around the 150 mark so not dumping yet.

Why not the 45 day ma or the 55 day ma? Only pick the window that suits your agenda? Typical of chartists, only see what they want to see - mind the gap!

Actually bensi, in return for government money to develop the vaccine, the Astra jab is supplied at cost - at least to the UK government.

I wonder how large the mark up on the J&J vaccine is? AZ is at cost and has been singled out for special attention.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/108403/russians-spread-fake-news-about-oxford-coronavirus-vaccine
This above link might give an insight - wait a second, the EU is looking at the Russian vacc. I wonder if 2+2 does in fact = 4.
There is some heavy **** being thrown around behind the scenes. The prospect of making quick mega bucks rather than kill the pandemic is the priority in many well placed minds.

And let us not forget those trying to use the situation to install their ideas and political philosophies as part of the woodwork before normality is returned and the ingress route is lost. The planets full if it!

My travel recovery stocks have flipped marginally green - is there something on the wire? I think watching the likes of Easy Jet, Jet2 and Wizz will indicate if there has been movement on the idiot test regime. Lunch time announcement. Any changes need to be timed into the news cycles around HRH.

AV is 212, didn't bail ahead of the last dip as the 12th April announcement was only a couple of weeks away, then, so not worth the risk. Yes, it can flip back round rather rapidly - announcement that the PCR test only to be required for confirmation of lateral flow result with cost borne by airline/airport/border control. But considering the politics involved and a management policy within Downing Street trying to please all the lobby groups all of the time such dramatic movements are now unlikely for a couple of months in my opinion. These sort of policies need firm decisions on one side or the other. Half-way solutions appeasing each tribe never work.

Where is Gove? Is HE about to walk?

I see long lockins at these prices across the board in travel stocks. The slow but terminal decline pattern has taken hold. I think the 12th no, the 9th April travel report was a complete disaster and the most important and critical variable on the return leg of any journey has been handled very badly. Whether you are rich or poor, knowing that the PCR test is required will mean disorganised 5 hour+ queues, over pricing, messed up results and a bloody nightmare at the airport. That test is completely the wrong one for high volume throughput of people. And then there is the aversion to the profiteering. These expensive tests didn't work in rising traveller numbers last year.

Has Gove been overruled and side-lined? He has not been heard of commenting on HIS review. Has the lockdown and closed borders lobby elbowed the rational people out? It looks to me that this was a very bad bit of government spin giving the impression that travel is on track to resume but in fact it is actually designed to make it as difficult as possible in order to effectively place a heavy handed cap on numbers.

For what purpose? If it is to prevent variants entering the UK, say so out loud and close all borders for the next 5 years until the whole planet is variant free. This is now like trying to stop the common cold from spreading. You can't. The risk averse have clearly got their claws into this and these fatalists are now going to do untold damage to a major business sector for here and abroad. Delaying our return to travel just to keep us in sync with Europe will only damage the tourist zones in Europe. This is very bad politics.

Something very odd going on. It looks like there is NO report today, it was published in full on Friday 9th April,

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-travel-taskforce-safe-return-of-international-travel

It has been stated many times from government and in press coverage that the review date is 12th April and Gove was in charge of it. Gove is no where to be seen and there was a careful bit of wording announcing the report date, https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/global-travel-taskforce
"The Global Travel Taskforce will report by 12 April 2021 with recommendations aimed at facilitating a return to international travel as soon as possible, while still managing the risk from imported cases and variants of concern."
--- report BY 12 April --

So we have had it! It was on Friday. What the hell is going on???????

It is a 50/50 either way. If opening up the travel sector actually equates to be based on whether you are prepared to pay hundreds of extra pounds, then as it looks across the board, the celebration of the big opening up form lockdown is very muted because we are indeed not opening up or returning to normal. And all the indications are that 'normal' will be deliberately held off. There is no particular rationale for it, it depends which lobby group is winning the news spin. So sentiment is muted and where today I would have expected the likes of RTN to rise on the positive opening up sentiment, it actual drops a bit more, again! Looks like this is a case of being locked in for a few months longer than planned or indeed necessary. Expect the big question to pop up increasingly with a crescendo in volume, why did we bother with vaccination if we are not returning to normal?

The only light at the end of this new tunnel is that when the anti-vacc passport lobby introduced opposition to using vacc passports for entry to events despite the fact that the proposal was not on the agenda and that the discussion was actually about vacc passports for travel, the initial solid agreement from government that vacc passports were never to be on the agenda has been turned around and not only are vacc travel passports very much on the agends, event vacc passports are also being trialled. Whilst I don't care one way or the other on event vacc passports, the U turn has been performed in way strongly suggesting political manoeuvring behind the scenes within cabinet.

Therefore, the PCR test cost has been forcibly opposed by the industry and the government will have a good insight into the cost problem. Therefore more U turns will be on the cards, business needs trumps shadowing EU policy, but it will take a couple of weeks for the politics to be worked through.

The fundamental bottom line is that if new variants are such a danger, then all foreign travel should cease, and permanently until there is a general vaccination against the entire covid family including SARS and SARS2. In which case the whole vaccination program is meaningless since we know that lockdown removes the spreading of the virus as last summer and then total border lockdown stops reintroduction as New Zealand and others have shown. Will the politics allow such a new world order? No. So the significant restrictions such as PCR cost will have to be removed and the clock ticking down to summer hols means within a couple of weeks.

Gordon Brown chasing the headlines again with his ''save the world' vaccine programme.

Expect Tony Blair to be on the airways very soon as he tries to out do Brown.

Those two are still at each others throats. Hilarious side show.

Volatile means up and down - ideal day trading numpty!

TP, I was going to invest a monkey or two in PTF as a serendipity investment, but alas they evaporated in 2018. I shall look out for future typos for my serendipity portfolio.

Well has any one got any better ideas?

If BA is announcing a restriction to flights that were planned, this is another major answer back against the government. When people ask when are the flights returning to normal, the response will be it is the governments wholly unnecessary restrictions that is denying the basic freedom to travel at an affordable price. I think the government may be significantly underestimating the value people have put on that freedom. Seems there is the age old disenfranchisement of the incumbent government from the people who it originally represented. Need to get back to listening and refrain from the lecturing. The return back to travel is NOT some sort of golden opportunity for mass experiments, behaviour control or nudge theory-ing some some crappy environmentalist agenda. If new variants really is the basis for these heavy handed rules then we might as well close all borders to all travel including sea ports for ever and just hope that after complete isolation - the next nasty variant doesn't actually happen within our own closed society.

THIS IS NOT NORTH KOREA!

Well my 250 by 12th April has been blown out of the water. What the hell was that all about today - forward announcements. And where is Gove? It is his task force. With PCR tests there is simply no way the level of travel will be high enough to justify a sp sentiment of 250 in my opinion now. The idea of using UK travellers as some sort clever scheme to spot new variants is just absurd. The tracking of new variants should be done within the countries not by PCR testing travellers. One hopes that once the damage that will be done to the whole travel sector is realised then a change to the system will be implemented. What exactly are they wanting to do with testing? Identify people with covid in order to advise them to isolate or force them into a quarantine hotel? Or is it to catch people with variants that the vaccines don't work with? Another mass experiment like with the single dose policy. Well this time it has already backfired with Jet2 suspending holidays and flights. I wonder how quickly the rest will follow suite.

What a bloody mess.

Jet 2 has suspended all holidays for May - direct response to the stupid press briefing this morning. Will Gove step up to the mike now and slap a few heads to bring the gang back in order? Or do we need a 'strike' across the board to force the government's hand to stop being so easily swayed by the panic brigade.

One of the last free talking non-Woke post war. Feel sorry for the Queen, she relied on him a lot.

Who's Bruce Jenner?

livepair - so why is this not being released on the 12th April - a date frequently referred to for a couple of months? The 5th April I am sure was a mistaken announcement by Boris and so on the 5th April there was only some very bare bones to announce presumably something that all factions had agreed to, i.e. a traffic light system. So this 'early' pre-12th news? The main purpose of today's news seems to be to hold on to closed borders or put as many obstacles in the way of opening up. This is Gove's remit and thinking this through, his lack of involvement in this news is beginning to speak volumes.

This is classic agenda spin, takes me back to the Blair/Brown wars. Looks like Boris' cabinet is as divided and split as Blair's was. I await with some degree of interest now exactly what Gove is going to be able to announce on Monday. Today's news releases is stating firmly that the countries lists will not be presented until early May. Will we see some direct counter-spinning to that over the weekend?

Interesting the market seems to have a null response. I wonder if the main traders are also reading this as a dodgy bit of factional spin rather than the actual policy position to be published on the 12th?

As ever, keep it 360 degrees and read between those lines. A lot of people have a wide variety of agendas and this is turning into a classic complex political fight.