Heathrow Airport has announced that passenger numbers rose in July as the UK government eased travel restrictions. Recovery was underway, the airport reported, while warning that overall numbers were still 80% below pre-pandemic levels as many barriers remain.
More than 1.5 million travelers passed through the airport in July, making it the busiest month since March 2020, just before Covid-19 confinements began in Europe and essentially halted travel. Heathrow Airport, the busiest in the U.K. – and the busiest in Europe before Covid-19 – announced that the government needed to do more to help bring travel back to even 2019 levels.
According to Reuters, some airlines have criticized the U.K. for not easing travel restrictions quickly enough despite its rapid vaccination program, as well as for implementing complicated rules that continue to include costly coronavirus testing.
They want the cost of testing to be reduced and for more countries to be added to the government’s list of low-risk countries. Heathrow also called on the UK and the US to reach an agreement to allow Britons to travel to the United States.
Last month, the UK government allowed fully vaccinated Britons to travel to medium-risk countries without the need to go through quarantine on their return, increasing passenger numbers by 74% compared to July last year. Since the beginning of August, the United Kingdom has opened its borders to fully vaccinated people from the United States and the European Union.
US carrier JetBlue is expected to start flying between London and New York later this week, in a sign of growing confidence in international travel.
