Airport trade organisation ACI International and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have called for remaining EU and Schengen area Covid travel restrictions to be removed.
The call includes testing requirements, proof of vaccination, Passenger Location Forms and mask wearing for travel where it’s no longer required for indoor environments.
The organisations jointly wrote to transport and health ministers across Europe requesting restrictions be aligned.
In a statement the organisations said Covid is pervasive throughout Europe with “population immunity at such levels that the risk of hospitalisation or death has dramatically reduced.”
IATA and ACI Europe also produced evidence to support bringing air travel rules in line with domestic rules with research from Oxera and Edge Health revealing that where a new variant is discovered and restrictions introduced immediately, the peak of infections is only delayed by a maximum of four days.
Rafael Schvartzman, regional vice president Europe for IATA, said: “March 11 marks exactly two years since the WHO announced Covid-19 was a global pandemic. In that time, we have seen increasing evidence that border restrictions are ineffective. The latest research from Oxera and Edge Health confirms that by the time a variant of concern is identified and restrictions are implemented, cross-border transmission will already have happened.
"Europe’s population immunity is strong and Covid-19 is essentially now an endemic disease. The time has come to focus their Covid efforts on surveillance and remove remaining intra-EU restrictions. This will free people to travel, and support jobs returning to the European air transport and travel sectors."
Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, said: “The independent research and modelling published today shows that governments can lift restrictions with confidence – both for today and for any future variants of concern. Travel restrictions have proven to be a blunt instrument with little to no impact on virus transmission. Removing all Covid-19 restrictions will finally fully restore the freedom to travel. That will be a much-needed boost for the whole travel and tourism sectors which has been forced to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs during the pandemic.”