WATCH: Edinburgh Airport bosses "optimistic" as travel regulations ease
Edinburgh Airport's Chief Executive is telling Radio Forth news they are "optimistic" ahead of the Summer as international travel Covid regulations ease today
There's optimism at Edinburgh Airport for the Summer as international travel rules ease today.
From 4am this morning (February 11th) passengers no longer need to to take a Covid test upon arriving in the UK, as long as they are fully vaccinated.
The previous rules still apply to those who are unvaccinated.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive at Edinburgh Airport is telling Radio Forth news that this is the best position the industry has been in since the pandemic began.
But he has warned it'll take years to return to the situation pre-pandemic.
He said:
"We are optimistic that we are going to see a strong response through the Summer that's going to get us back back on the road to recovery.
"But it'll be many years before we've got all the connectivity back that we enjoyed in 2019.
"We've come off two of the hardest years in Aviation history so at the moment we are trading at under 40% of where we were in 2019.
"But the forward bookings for the Summer do look good, but we're not seeing any significant increases this month."
The travel industry isn't totally without Covid related restrictions yet though, as Mr Dewar explains:
"Still more to go, there's still other restrictions in other parts of the world.
"We've still go the passenger locator form
"And of course the whole rapid change around in November, December last year means that people lost the confidence to book in the early part of this year."