Covid in Scotland: Airports 'have no idea' how quarantine rules will work
- Published
Scotland is set to have tougher restrictions than the rest of the UK
Airport bosses say they have "no idea" how the Scottish government's tougher quarantine restrictions on travellers will work.
Nicola Sturgeon announced on Monday that Scotland's rules would go further than the other UK countries.
Under UK plans, people arriving from high-risk countries on a "red list", external will have to quarantine in hotels.
The first minister said that would be extended to all travellers "regardless of which country they have come from".
The chief executive of Glasgow and Aberdeen airports criticised the Scottish government for not involving the industry in its discussions.
Derek Provan insisted there had been "no engagement" over policies which have now "completely shut down our airports".
The Scottish government said work was ongoing on the details, and it "will obviously talk to the aviation sector" before announcing its final plans.
Mr Provan, of the AGS Airports group, told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme the industry must be consulted if it is to help implement the measures.
He said: "There is no engagement with the Scottish government. We are finding out the next restrictions as the first minister makes those announcements.
"There has been an announcement of the third set of further restrictions in the same number of weeks. But, as of this time, we have no idea how that will work.
"We don't know how people will be able to travel from the aircraft to the hotel.
"And we certainly don't understand what monitoring and measuring will take place between the Scottish and English borders."
Mr Provan said the new restrictions would mean airports having to go through a second summer period without any business.
He said the aviation business was now in a "survival situation" and must be involved in government talks on a recovery plan for the industry and the economy.
"We can help, but we need meaningful support," he added.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "We still don't know how this is expected to work, when it is being enacted and what it means for airports and our industry, so yet again we ask the Scottish government to talk to us.
"Business-changing policy with no detail is damaging because we can't plan our response or our recovery, which will feed into Scotland's recovery. We understand restrictions are required but we're now coming up for a year of little to no passengers without direct industry support.
"We urgently need to agree a road map to recovery."
'Too reactive'
The first minister said on Tuesday the stricter rules were to "guard against" the importation of new variants."
She said the approach agreed across the UK only included countries where new variants had already been identified.
Ms Sturgeon said this was "too reactive" because a new variant will often have spread across borders by the time it has been identified through genomic sequencing.
While the Scottish government cannot "unilaterally" implement managed quarantine for people arriving in other parts of the UK before travelling to Scotland, it will urge the UK government to adopt the stricter approach.
Deputy first minister John Swinney told Good Morning Scotland the Scottish government was "very committed to ongoing dialogue with all sectors affected" by the quarantine changes.
He said: "We have to use every device available to us to interrupt the circulation of the virus, and the approaches that we're taking on quarantine arrangements are designed to do exactly that.
"There is work going on to develop the thinking that the government wants to put in place and we will obviously talk to the aviation sector as part of that process."
Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK government's position was "constantly under review".
He said: "It is already the case that before you come to any part of the United Kingdom you need to have had a negative Covid test.
"And it is also the case that before you get into the United Kingdom you have to acknowledge that you will isolate for a period, and there are strict penalties if you break that isolation.
"Managed isolation is an additional measure and we review all of the countries that people are coming from in order to make sure that we are vigilant against any new strain of the virus."
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