UK is an island but cannot shut out the world, Heathrow CEO says

"We've got to find a way of keeping people safe from a second wave but also getting the economy going again." He said a double testing programme could reduce the time of the 14-day quarantine.

Heathrow Airport's boss John Holland-Kaye called on the British government to get travel restarted as swiftly as possible, warning that the country was an island but that it could not shut itself off from the world forever. "We are an island nation - we cannot cut ourselves off from the world for the foreseeable future," Holland-Kaye told the BBC. "We've got to find a way of keeping people safe from a second wave but also getting the economy going again."

He said a double testing program could reduce the time of the 14-day quarantine. One test at the airport, that could be up and running in two weeks, and a second test at a health facility 5-8 days later to reduce quarantine time. COVID-19, he said, had wrought a devastating impact on the economy and the aviation industry, but that there were signs of movement in the government on quarantine.