Government travel rules mean holidays only open to ‘people who can afford it’, says easyJet boss

The proposed government rules for international travel would exclude foreign holidays for everyone barring “people who can afford it”, an airline boss has said.

EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said that, if pre-departure and arrival PCR tests are required for travellers arriving in the UK, the expense would be “way over and above what the cost is of an average easyJet fare”.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Lundgren claimed the cost of multiple tests meant “you wouldn’t open up international travel for everyone, you would open up international travel for people who can afford it”, excluding a huge number of prospective holidaymakers.

He made the comments following the prime minister’s press conference on 5 April, during which he confirmed that international travel would restart with the aid of a “traffic light” system.

Countries will be assigned a colour based on risk, with different rules and restrictions applied to each category.

The green category, comprised of the lowest risk destinations, won’t require arrivals to quarantine on return to the UK, but pre-departure and post-arrival tests will still be needed.

“This new category will accommodate countries where we judge the risk to be lower, based for instance on vaccinations, infection rates, the prevalence of variants of concern, and their genomic sequencing capacity (or access to genomic sequencing),” says the government…

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From The Independent - April 6, 2021