UK: Heathrow chief urges aviation industry to prepare for periodic lockdowns

The CE of Heathrow airport has warned the aviation industry needs to prepare itself for periodic lockdowns around the world as countries are hit by new coronavirus outbreaks. John Holland-Kaye said the airport was considering a range of possible responses as new infections swept across cities previously thought to have brought the pandemic under control, such as Melbourne, Australia, which this week was put into lockdown for six weeks. “If we have periodic outbreaks around the world, we’ve got to have a different fall back to complete quarantine. There’s got to be an alternative that will just become part of the way we live our lives and we need to start working on that now,” Holland-Kaye said. His warning came as millions of people who are eager to take summer holidays weigh the benefits and risks of flying overseas. Holland-Kaye noted it could take several years to develop a coronavirus vaccine and said it was essential that governments and industry came up with a way to ensure outbreaks did not result in another complete shutdown in air travel. Heathrow has been calling on the UK government to lead the way in developing a common testing standard for airports around the world to screen passengers for coronavirus.<br/>