A new survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows that the majority of air travellers will not take a trip if it involves a 14-day quarantine period.

Countries have introduced quarantine requirements for arriving passengers, with the UK Government confirming this week that it will introduce quarantine measures “in the near future.” Willie Walsh, CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG) has warned that the group’s capacity into and out of the UK would be “pretty minimal” in the event of a 14-day quarantine for arrivals. 

An IATA survey of recent air travellers found that 86% of travellers were “somewhat or very concerned about being quarantined while travelling,” while 69% “would not consider travelling if it involved a 14-day quarantine period.”

The association said that it “strongly urges governments to find alternatives to maintaining or introducing arrival quarantine measures as part of post-pandemic travel restrictions,” and proposed “a temporary risk-based layered approach to provide governments with the confidence to open their border without quarantining arrivals.”

The survey also found that 58% of air travellers “are somewhat or very likely to restrict their initial travel to domestic journeys,” and IATA warns that international revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) are not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2024.

“Major stimulus from governments combined with liquidity injections by central banks will boost the economic recovery once the pandemic is under control,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director general and CEO.

“But rebuilding passenger confidence will take longer. And even then, individual and corporate travellers are likely to carefully manage travel spend and stay closer to home.

“We need a solution for safe travel that addresses two challenges. It must give passengers confidence to travel safely and without undue hassle. And it must give governments confidence that they are protected from importing the virus. Our proposal is for a layering of temporary non-quarantine measures until we have a vaccine, immunity passports or nearly instant Covid-19 testing available at scale.”

www.iata.org