Heathrow CEO warns of huge job losses over 14-day quarantine plan
2 June 2020, 15:29 | Updated: 2 June 2020, 15:31
Heathrow CEO warns of huge job losses over 14-day quarantine plan
The CEO of Heathrow Airport has warned that the government's quarantine plan will lead to huge job losses.
International travellers arriving in the UK will be expected to quarantine for 14 days from Monday in a bid to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
John Holland-Kaye was supportive of the idea of a quarantine, but said the government needed a roadmap to allow the travel industry to plan for the future or lot of jobs will be lost.
He said: "We support the efforts to protect public health and prevent a second wave, so we're not opposed to the principle of a quarantine.
"What we want to know is what the exit plan is. Because an open-ended blanket quarantine with no exit plan will turn this health pandemic into an unemployment pandemic.
"And it's not about the aviation sector. It's also about the businesses that rely upon aviation, whether they are exporters, service businesses which go around the world or even just the leisure and tourism sector which employs 4m people here in the UK.
"Many of those jobs rely on foreign visitors coming here, especially for the summer season.
"All of those jobs are at risk, unless we have an exit plan which would allow people who don't have the disease to visit our country and people from the UK to visit their countries."
Hear his full interview at the top of the page.
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