ABTA considers suing UK govt over Covid travel rules - report
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Tuesday 22 Jun 2021
(Sharecast News) - British travel firms are considering taking legal action against the government in relation to Covid restrictions on foreign trips, UK media reported on Tuesday.
Mark Tanzer, chief executive of the travel trade organisation ABTA, said he wanted to find out what analysis has been carried out by the UK government about the impact of travel rules on businesses, the Press Association news agency reported.
Asked at the Travel Matters conference whether ABTA could sue the government, Tanzer replied: "We're looking at whether or not that is an avenue that we can pursue."
"The hurdle for suing the government is high but we think at least the government needs to say, did it measure the impact on the travel sector of its own policies, and if it did, did it then decide that the sector nonetheless wasn't worthy of support."
Tanzer issued a "heartfelt plea for political change" in relation to restrictions on international travel. Noting that outbound travel is influenced by several government departments, he said the sector is not content to be "a political orphan".
"Clear accountability for the welfare of the outbound travel sector needs to be given to a designated minister. Our economic contribution is weighty. More money is spent in the UK by British citizens prior to travelling abroad than is spent by international visitors and the job creation or destruction potential is huge."
Airline and travel firm shares rose sharply last week on news the UK could allow fully vaccinated holidaymakers to visit amber list countries without having to quarantine. The government is operating a traffic light system for international travel.
Under the current system, travellers must quarantine for 10 days and have a total of three Covid tests when returning from countries including all major European holiday destinations.
The news emerged as Ryanair and Britain's biggest airport group, Manchester Airports Group, launched legal action against the government to force more transparency in how the traffic-light system is decided.
Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, described the traffic-light system as "a complete shambles" and said the "go-stop-go-stop policy is causing untold damage to the aviation industry and frustrating and upsetting millions of British families".
Despite an initial welcome, the scheme soon came in for criticism when the government decided to only include a handful of countries on the green list - which allowed quarantine-free travel. It then suddenly removed Portugal, the only major holiday destination, meaning the aviation and travel sector faced yet another summer of huge losses.
ABTA urged the government to relax the rules for vaccinated travellers and provide dedicated financial support to struggling travel businesses, as it warned almost 200,000 UK jobs in the sector were lost or at risk.
Analysis by the trade group found 195,000 of the 526,000 people normally employed in the sector had either lost their jobs or were on the brink of redundancy, with more than half of small businesses saying they could not survive another three months without trading.
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