Business travellers should be used to pioneer transatlantic flying, leading bosses say

As Lufthansa announces the expansion of its coronavirus testing centre at its Frankfurt hub, pressure is growing on the UK government to allow alternatives to two weeks of quarantine. The German airline is increasing capacity from 4,500 to 10,000 passengers a day. But the UK government has yet to agree to any use of testing to limit the current 14 days of self-isolation for arrivals from most countries. Virgin Atlantic CE Shai Weiss said: “The economy, which is already in deep recession, will not take off unless we have travel and tourism back on track. The only way to do that, I believe, in the interim period before treatment and a vaccine are made available, is through testing.” He advocates testing on arrival until pre-departure testing with near-instant results becomes feasible. Boris Johnson and other ministers have rejected the concept of a single test on arrival, claiming it will pick up only 7% of infected travellers. Their assertion, which is a misrepresentation of the conclusions of a theoretical study by Public Health England three months ago, has been rubbished by one of Britain’s leading statisticians. Lufthansa says that 1% of passengers have tested positive in the Frankfurt airport tests. Meanwhile a leading travel boss has proposed that business travellers should be used to pioneer transatlantic flying. Drew Crawley, chief commercial officer for American Express Global Business Travel, said a limited number of closely monitored executives should be able to fly on the world’s busiest intercontinental link, between London and New York. While BA, Virgin Atlantic and US carriers are still operating a limited number of services, the planes are largely empty and represent a small fraction of the normal 30-plus departures each way.<br/>