IATA wants to see a Spanish plan to restart air transport to boost economy

THE International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called on the government and politicians in Spain to agree a roadmap to restart air transport services once the health situation permits.

The travel restrictions and quarantine measures introduced have dramatically affected air traffic to and from Spain meaning that demand in 2020 fell by 72 per cent.

Tourism accounts for 12 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and some 82 per cent of tourists arrive by air.

The wider economy also benefits from aviation-enabled trade and business activity including the important international conference and trade fair sector, in which Spain is a global leader. IATA believes that Spain’s recovery cannot materialise without a restart of tourism and aviation, which means implementing policies which open up the country and enables travellers to avoid quarantine.

It is vital that governments manage the risk of importing Covid-19 cases while ensuring travel is safe and vaccination and testing play a central role as they represent the best measures to give confidence to both governments and passengers.

One way of doing this is to offer quick, easy and low-cost options for testing and increasing the roll-out of vaccinations.

“We recognise that the government has a difficult balancing act between unlocking the economy and safeguarding public health. We are not demanding a date for border restrictions to be lifted.

“But Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and all policy-makers in Spain must agree a vision for how international travel can and will be restarted as the pandemic ends” commented Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Europe.

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