It’s time that travel industry was allowed to get off the ground

A ‘Travel Day of Action’ was held across the UK yesterday, including at Stormont, as the industry desperately seeks to avoid what could be an even more disastrous summer than that of 2020.

Despite the undisputed success of the UK’s vaccination programme, which has resulted in deaths and serious illness from Covid-19 plummeting, the government has barely moved the dial on its draconian policy over foreign travel.

Its so-called traffic light system has been poorly applied, as encapsulated by the decision to put Portugal onto the green list, only for it to turn amber within a matter of a few weeks.

A travel ban might have been understandable at the worst points of the pandemic but the situation has improved drastically and even European countries with lower vaccination rates than the UK have opened up their skies once again. Germans, for instance, have been flocking to the Mediterranean in their thousands while the UK’s sun-seekers remain grounded.

People have sacrificed so much over the last year-and-a-half. What is the point of being double vaccinated if it does not deliver a restoration of the freedoms that you came to expect?

This is about much more than those seeking a week or two in the sun. There are many people who have not been able to visit relatives and loved ones for well over a year. More crucially still, there are thousands of jobs at stake right across the industry, and particularly within aviation.

The government must now implement a fair system on foreign travel for summer that acknowledges those with vaccinations and those countries with low Covid-19 rates. It must also deliver the payment of support grants to travel agents.