According to the airlines, short-time work support for aviation employees should be extended until April next year in order to secure jobs during the winter season.
Airlines UK, an industry association for British airlines, said airlines had made billions of pounds in pre-tax losses during the coronavirus pandemic and announced more than 30,000 job cuts.
In a letter to Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, the industry association described the impact of the crisis as “devastating”.
The majority of the £7.2 billion in government support for airlines was “essentially taken on as new debt”, it said.
“No sector could continue to accumulate debt in this way for much longer and hope to recover from it.”
The short-time work program, which continues up to 80 percent of wages, was supposed to end on September 30. However, the letter calls for it to be extended until the end of April 2022 for workers in aviation to cover the traditionally unprofitable winter months.
Airlines UK also called on Mr Sunak to extend repayment deadlines for pandemic loan schemes, extend business rates relief to airlines and offer restart grants.
The letter continues: “If a meaningful reopening is not possible over the summer, given current government policy and the application of the Global Travel Taskforce recommendations, then targeted economic support will be essential to ensure that UK airlines reach the point where a restart is possible, protecting many tens of thousands of jobs.”
Portugal’s removal from the government’s green travel list means there are no longer any major tourist destinations that people from the UK can visit without having to quarantine on their return.
A report by the government’s Global Travel Taskforce in April recommended the creation of a green watchlist to identify countries most at risk of their status changing from green to yellow, but this has not yet happened.
