UK travel is more restricted, complicated and costly than elsewhere

By Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee

The saying goes that the darkest hour is always before the dawn. During the pandemic, the UK’s aviation and travel industries have had their fair share of dark times, and false dawns.

For nearly two years, very few of us have been able to travel abroad for pleasure, for business, or to reunite with friends and family. Those who have managed to get away have felt the anxiety caused by Byzantine testing rules and Covid paperwork, and felt the costs in our pockets, with rip-off private suppliers frequently charging hundreds of pounds for travel
tests.

Consistently during this crisis, and compared to almost all our European competitors, travel to and from the UK has been more restricted, complicated, and costly than elsewhere. We have had literally dozens of changes to the travel rules.

The health advantages of these measure can be debated, but it isn’t apparent how they favoured the UK compared to
countries where rules were more light touch and stable or compared to the EU where for most of last summer, fully vaccinated travellers could come and go without any tests or restrictions at all.

Last autumn, there was growing optimism that for passengers, the worst was over. International travel was starting to look more normal, with fewer tests and simpler rules. The US was open to British travellers again, and holiday makers could travel to the continent without fear of being stranded abroad.

Then omicron struck and saw not only the old travel rules re-imposed, but new rules added out of the blue, throwing Christmas travel into chaos.

Some of the hysterical commentary around omicron understandably left many in the travel industry, like those who work at Manchester Airport near my constituency, fearing for their futures again. And not to forget, it isn’t just airlines and airports affected – Visit Britain has calculated that the UK has lost nearly £50bn in tourism spend since the crisis began – a simply unsustainable loss for our domestic tourism industry.

However, calmer voices could still be heard, noting that the experience of omicron in South Africa was different to previous waves, a further sign that Covid-19 is becoming ‘endemic’; i.e., no longer a health emergency but one that can be managed through vaccinations and treatments, and with which we can live, as we return to normal life and regain our liberty.

Much credit is due to the Government which, after only a few weeks, decided in the New Year to strip away the ‘emergency’ travel measures imposed because of omicron, recognising that they brought about few health benefits but did so at huge cost to jobs and people’s freedoms to travel, do business and see relatives.

New analysis commissioned by thre Manchester Airports Group and Airlines UK shows how pre-departure and PCR testing and isolation, even for fully vaccinated arrivals – would have had almost no impact on the direction of the omicron wave this month, simply because the virus is established and there are, rightly, almost no restrictions on domestic life beyond individuals making informed decisions for themselves, weighing their own risk.

What the data shows is just how ineffective travel rules actually are, supporting the industry view that in future, variants can and should be monitored and slowed via a red list, rather than universal restrictions even on fully vaccinated and boosted travellers. 

If the reimposition of emergency travel rules last November was the darkest moment for the UK travel industry during this crisis, we now have the prospect of a much brighter dawn. The UK is taking advantage of one of the most open societies in the world, owing to the success of our booster rollout.

The remaining domestic Plan B rules are being reviewed at the end of January. It is essential that international travel rules form part of any package of changes, and critically that all tests at least for fully vaccinated travellers are removed.

There is now no good reason to ask a family of vaccinated arrivals to pay nearly £100 for private tests once they arrive. There is also no good reason to make the UK less attractive to business travellers, who simply don’t face these tests elsewhere.

It is time that the UK, having squeezed its travel industry harder than almost any other country, sets it free and enables it to do what it does best – connect the UK’s regions and nations to the world, spreading opportunity and broadening our collective horizons in the process.