The route between New York and London is known as the most profitable in the world, and airlines rely heavily on transatlantic flights to remain profitable. Although a smattering of these flights remains, they are often empty and certainly not full of the high yield business travelers they once were. For many US and European airlines, they have little hope of any recovery until the transatlantic market starts to revive. To illustrate the point, United Airlines today announced the worst financial quarterly results in its history.
A group of major airlines has written a letter to US and European Union leaders asking for a US-EU testing program to allow travel to resume between the two regions. Currently, there are restrictions on travelers in both directions. Despite Europe having made good progress against coronavirus, travelers to the US that have visited Europe in the last 14 days are not allowed entry in most cases. Likewise, US visitors are not allowed to enter almost all European countries or face a 14-day quarantine when entering the UK.
Passengers in protective face masks arrive to London Stansted Airport as the United Kingdom is ... [+]
Chief Executives of airlines including International Airlines Group (IAG) - which owns British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia, as well as American Airlines, United Airlines, and Lufthansa wrote to the US and European governments on Tuesday.
“Given the unquestioned importance of trans-Atlantic air travel to the global economy as well as to the economic recovery of our businesses, we believe it is critical to find a way to re-open air services between the US and Europe,” the airline leaders said.
“In addition to all the significant and unprecedented actions that governments and airlines are taking to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, a co-ordinated Covid-19 testing program could be key to providing confidence to permit services to resume without quarantine requirements or other entry restrictions”.
The letter did not suggest whether this would be a test on arrival or whether travelers would have to have proof of a negative test beforehand. This could prove difficult given the long wait times for tests in many areas of the US. Covid-19 testing is already being used by many countries to allow tourism and travel to restart. Airports have begun offering testing services with Heathrow trialing testing for arrivals to avoid the mandatory UK 14-day quarantine. Lufthansa is also offering testing with a three-hour turn around in Frankfurt and Munich airports.
