EUROPE. International airport and airline groups – including ACI Europe and the International Air Transport Association – have urged European governments to immediately abolish quarantine measures and other travel restrictions.
Their call comes in the wake of new recommendations published by EASA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control (ECDC) which reject their use where transmission of the virus is already widespread.
The EASA/ECDC Guidelines for COVID-19 testing and quarantine of air travellers: Addendum to the Aviation Health Safety Protocol also states that air travellers account for under 1% of all detected COVID-19 cases and do not increase the rate of virus transmission.
Those opposing travel restrictions also point to other analyses, which they say, confirm the absence of a correlation between passenger traffic and prevalence rates at national level.
ACI Europe’s analysis of airport passenger data in the third quarter of 2020 rejects any relationship between air travel and increasing COVID-19 transmission rates.
The brief increase in air passenger traffic during this period was proven to have no statistically significant relationship with the COVID-19 test positivity rate, based on aviation, public health and community mobility data, according to the trade body.
Similarly, a study by Oxerta has confirmed that the risk of introducing infections from international travel should be assessed relative to domestic infection levels. It projected that among weekly incoming passenger volumes of 409,800 from the EU to the UK, only 0.01% of air travellers were expected to be infectious travellers being released into the UK population. This is the equivalent of one infectious person per 10,000 travellers.
McMaster HealthLabs in Canada has also published an interim report on its COVID-19 study of arriving international passengers, which supports the figure of 99% of passengers testing negative. This, says the company, is a powerful tool to make “science-based policy decisions” and reject quarantines as a relevant approach to containment.
Airlines and airports continue to believe that rapid testing of passengers travelling between high and low-risk areas can contribute to and support the early detection of cases amongst asymptomatic travellers.
European air passenger traffic has been among the most heavily impacted of any region, and recently plunged 89% at EU/EEA/Swiss & UK airports. To date, 102 airports across Europe accounting for 47% of passenger traffic on the continent have deployed testing facilities under the supervision of their competent health and aviation authorities.
These testing facilities have allowed a number of airlines and airports to propose “COVID-19 free flights” and quarantine-free travel corridors on certain air routes, including most recently between Italy and the US, based on a testing protocol for air travellers.
Europe’s aviation associations have urged European States to work together bilaterally to replicate such initiatives and develop more quarantine-free travel corridors.
Reaction from aviation associations
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec: “These guidelines unequivocally show quarantines to be essentially politically-driven, non-risk-based measures which bear no relation to what is actually needed to safeguard public health. As such, quarantines fail the test of proportionality, a key principle of EU law – particularly since there are no equivalent measures at land borders.
“This has resulted in unprecedented limitations to the freedom of movement and the freedom to provide services. We call on national governments to immediately abolish their quarantine restrictions and restore freedom of movement for European citizens.”
Airlines for Europe Managing Director Thomas Reynaert: “Rapid testing which utilises the latest technologies available and meets the high sensitivity and sensibility criteria established by ECDC can help restore predictability, reignite passenger confidence and thus re-establish flight connectivity for European passengers.”
European Regions Airline Association Director General Montserrat Barriga: “Testing technologies are evolving quickly, and we stand ready to work with EASA, the ECDC and national governments to implement the most efficient and effective methods to get Europe moving again.”
International Air Transport Association Regional Vice President for Europe Rafael Schvartzman: “Rapid testing of passengers for COVID-19 opens the door to restarting air travel by eliminating quarantine. And the public agrees – some 65% of travellers surveyed suggest quarantine should not apply to passengers who have tested negative.
“The EASA/ECDC protocol makes it clear that quarantine is not an effective measure in the present circumstances. And it is important that the protocol should also be applied to remove the temporary travel restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU from third countries.”
