Airlines UK dinner outburst

“Outburst” was probably not the description that Aviation Minister Robert Courts would have called his words at the Airlines UK annual dinner last Wednesday but that was how it came across.

“We’ve heard your concerns in the Passenger Locator Form. The Secretary of State [Grant Shapps] and I both want the PLF gone as soon as possible and we are working towards that”.  See also Passenger Locator Forms in this issue.

He argued: “Since early February we’ve had one of the most open Covid regimes in the world. This is a Conservative government. We must not and will not become addicted to bureaucratic restrictions”.

Courts also promised that any future border requirements to deal with Covid-19 variants would be “proportionate”.

He told an audience of aviation industry leaders and MPs at an event sponsored by airport service provider Collinson, and also Airbus: “Many of you have given your time to develop the toolkit of options to deal with any future variants of concern. Any contingency measures will be used proportionately to the risk to public health”.

But he gave no indication of when the PLF will be removed.  Easter Friday is 15 April and a long way off.  Some have suggested it would be removed by 18 March.

Transport Select Committee Chair Huw Merriman, also at the dinner, told a Business Travel Association conference in London last week: “I’m pretty confident we’ll get [the PLF] dropped by Easter.”

However, Merriman said that the Department of Health remains opposed to the PLF’s removal.

Ireland removed the PLF from Sunday 6 March, allowing unrestricted entry to vaccinated and unvaccinated arrivals and Greece has announced it will do so from 15 March.

https://airlinesuk.org

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