Coronavirus: Millions of jobs could be lost if planes stay grounded in Heathrow

Hundreds of thousands of jobs, if not millions, could be lost in Britain if aviation is not able to resume quickly, the chief executive of London’s Heathrow Airport said on Monday.

Britain introduced a 14-day quarantine period for international arrivals on Monday despite warnings from its biggest airlines that the move will decimate domestic tourism and damage exports.

“We cannot go on like this as a country,” Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye told Sky News. “We need to start planning to reopen our borders.

“If we don’t get aviation moving again quickly, in a very safe way, then we are going to lose hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs in the UK just at the time when we need to be rebuilding our economy.”

Earlier the same day, Ryanair said it will not cancel flights to and from the United Kingdom despite the government introducing a 14-day quarantine for international travelers because it is seeing thousands of Britons booking holidays, boss Michael O’Leary said on Monday.

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