Heathrow woes continue with 90% of passengers staying away

Britain’s busiest airport handled just one-10th of pre-pandemic passengers in the first half of 2021. Heathrow’s latest figures showed only 3.8m travellers passing through what used to be Europe’s busiest airport between January and June 2021, compared with 39 million during the same spell in 2019. Numbers are expected to increase from next week, with British travellers who have been fully vaccinated by the NHS allowed to return from “amber list” countries without quarantine. But no such concession applies to passengers who have received their jabs abroad. The CE of Heathrow, John Holland-Kaye said: “While it’s fantastic news that some double-vaccinated passengers will no longer need to quarantine from amber countries, ministers need to extend this policy to US and EU nationals if they want to kickstart the economic recovery. These changes will be critical for exporters who are losing out to EU rivals and families who have been separated from loved ones.”<br/>