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SPAA urges mandatory airport tests to avoid ‘wipe out’ of agents
The Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association has called for Covid testing to be mandatory at all Scottish airports in bid to save the travel industry from complete meltdown.
President Joanne Dooey said it would remove the requirement for enforced quarantine and rescue agents, and the wider industry, of ‘imminent decimation’.
Ironically, four of the six testing centres in Scotland are based at airports yet no passengers are tested, the SPAA said.
"We’re calling for testing at airports because of the importance of travel to the Scottish economy. Outbound travellers are worth £1.7 billion to Scotland and outbound travel sustains more than 26,000 jobs for our country," Dooey said.
"We understand that there is a cost associated with testing. However, the cost to the UK and Scottish governments of the failure of the travel sector in Scotland with the associated job losses would utterly dwarf the investment in airport testing.
"It seems paradoxical that the majority of drive-through COVID 19 testing centres in Scotland [4 out of 6] are based at Airports [Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Prestwick] but there is no passenger testing at these locations."
Dooey urged Scotland to learn from Germany which has introduced testing programs at airports with minimal wait times.
"Even Jersey – which is part of the British Isles – has a testing operation for all arrivals at the airport. We cannot understand why testing does not appear to be being considered in Scotland and seems to be a low prioritym" she said.
"A testing regime could potentially reduce the requirement for a 14 day quarantine to a more manageable to eight days. Without testing, the travel sector in Scotland faces imminent decimation."
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