Travellers cancelling Heathrow flights over Omicron curb fears

Business passengers are starting to cancel flights out of London’s Heathrow airport over fears they could be trapped by travel restrictions as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads.

The airport on Friday said passenger numbers were 60% lower in November than before the coronavirus pandemic and there were now “high cancellations” among business travellers.

This week ministers said passengers arriving in the UK would have to take a pre-departure Covid test, as well as a post-flight test as Omicron spread across Europe.

Heathrow said UK curbs were a new blow to travel confidence and forecast it would take several years for passenger numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“[The] high level of cancellations by business travellers concerned about being trapped overseas because of pre-departure testing shows the potential harm to the economy of travel restrictions,” the airport said.

It added that the newest slump in traveller confidence had negated the benefit of reopening trans-Atlantic routes for business and holiday travel last month.

The UK government added 11 African countries to its red list, requiring travellers to quarantine before reuniting with families.

“By allowing Brits to isolate at home, ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas,” said John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow.

“It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022, opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.”

Heathrow said that if the government could safely signal that restrictions would be lifted soon, then employers at Heathrow would have the confidence to hire thousands of staff in anticipation of a boost in business next summer.

The airport is now expecting a slow start to 2022, finishing next year with about 45 million passengers, or around half of pre-pandemic levels.

“We do not expect that international travel will recover to 2019 levels until at least all travel restrictions (including testing) are removed from all the markets that we serve, at both ends of the route, and there is no risk of new restrictions, such as quarantine, being imposed,” the airport said.