DUBAI SEEKS RETURN TO UK’S GREEN TRAVEL LIST
▶ Airport chief calls suspension of passenger flights to India ‘a great loss’
Dubai Airports is in discussion to put the emirate back on the UK’s travel “green list”, its chief executive said.
“We have made very strong representation to the British government about the credibility of the numbers here and the way we are handling everything,” Paul Griffiths told a Dubai-based radio channel on Thursday.
“There are countries on the green list that, we believe, haven’t taken the kind of care and number of measures like we have in Dubai to keep everyone safe.”
The chief executive suggested putting together a task force to contribute ideas and practical ways to act as a sanitised hub for traffic to the UK.
He said Dubai International Airport could “apply rigorous testing and hygiene measures that we have put in place, which are far better than a lot of other places in the world”.
With London being a key single-city destination and the UK representing a huge chunk of business for Dubai Airports, Mr Griffiths said he “wants to resolve this very quickly”.
“It is almost unthinkable not having a solid air bridge of flights [28 daily services] between the UAE and the UK. It is ironic that we can fly to Scotland, but not to England.”
He also called for bilateral agreements with countries and a more proactive approach to restore the mobility of 4 billion people worldwide.
The 10-day suspension of passenger flights to India from the UAE “is a great loss” and will affect Dubai Airports as the country accounts for 32 per cent of traffic, he said.
“It is our most important single market. If a rapid medical recovery comes sooner rather than later, the impact will not be so great. But, unfortunately, I think we are braced for the long haul,” said Mr Griffiths.
However, he said that measures such as the temporary closure of concourse A and B at Dubai International’s Terminal 1 had “allowed us to save liquidity to remain profitable and still be able to serve our customers”.
India is recording an average of more than 300,000 new coronavirus cases each day and the health system is overwhelmed by the crisis.
Several countries, including the UAE, have shut down travel from India to stop the new Covid-19 strain from taking hold in their own countries, potentially setting back vaccination campaigns.
Mr Griffiths also called for changes to quarantine rules to enable people to travel. He said the current approach to quarantine measures would not help the global economy stay mobile.
“What we are campaigning for is a harmonised approach where you can do perhaps part of the quarantine process before you depart, be tested several times during the journey followed by a much reduced period of quarantine on arrival. That achieves the objective of respecting people’s time and giving them a feasible way to travel,” he said.
Dubai International Airport’s first-quarter passenger traffic fell by 67.8 per cent to 5.75 million, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
He said the airport has been operating at reduced capacity since the pandemic began.
“We have been operating for the past couple of months at just over a million passengers. Normally, at this period we would be getting between 7 million to 8 million passengers a month. That is the scale of our reduction,” said Mr Griffiths.
Global airlines are still reeling from the effects of the pandemic and industry revenue is expected to take longer to recover, the International Air Transport Association said.
Revenue is only expected to recover to 43 per cent of 2019 levels this year, compared with a previous forecast in December of 55 per cent, the airline trade body said.
Airlines worldwide are forecast to make a $47.7 billion loss this year, although this is a 62 per cent reduction on the $126.4bn lost last year, it said.