The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) President and CEO, Julia Simpson, has said that the council fully supports the call of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airports Council International Europe (ACI) to end all the restrictions that are currently being applied to intra-EU and Schengen Area travel.
Simpson said that the patchwork of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions had caused serious damages to the overall economy. For this reason, it has been highlighted once again that the measures should be abolished, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“The patchwork of restrictions do nothing to prevent the spread of COVID but have caused serious damage to the economy, causing the loss of jobs and businesses. Over the past few weeks, we have seen economies reopening. It is time to remove these ineffective restrictions and allow people to travel freely,” the statement of Simpson reads.
IATA and ACI Europe have just recently called on the government to drop the remaining requirements that are being applied for travel within the EU and Schengen Area.
These two urged the governments to allow restriction-free movement for travellers by removing the requirement to present a vaccination or recovery certificate. In addition, the two aviation groups have emphasised that the EU responsible authorities should also no longer require travellers to present a negative COVID-19 test result or complete a Passenger Locator Form.
The call of IATA and ACI to remove the travel restrictions follows the improvement of the COVID-19 situation. According to these two, EU countries should lift their travel measures as the virus no longer causes serious health implications or a high number of hospitalisations.
“The independent research and modelling published today show 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,” Director General of ACI Europe, Olivier Jankovec, said.
Similarly, the IATA’s Regional Vice President for Europe, Rafael Schvartzman, said that it is about time that EU countries focus their COVID effort on surveillance and remove the remaining restrictions that are being applied for intra-EU travel.
Six EU/EEA countries have lifted all of their COVID-19 travel restrictions until now, whereas several others have relaxed some of their rules.
The group of countries that have abolished all of their entry rules includes Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Hungary, Ireland, and Romania.
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