The taskforce – headed up by transport secretary Grant Shapps – was set up nearly three months ago, tasked with expediting plans to reopen the transatlantic corridor between the US and the UK.
Boris Johnson and Joe Biden met on 10 June ahead of the G7 summit (11-13 June) where they agreed on an Atlantic Charter featuring a "principled commitment" to open up travel between the two countries "as soon as possible".
Since then, the UK has waived quarantine for fully vaccinated US arrivals, but this – as managing director of Global Travel Collection UK Jason Oshiokpekhai notes – has gone unreciprocated.
"It is an example of our current disjointed approach," said Oshiokpekhai. "Three months on, the taskforce is yet to present any purpose for their deployment, other than to briefly appease unrelenting calls from our sector.
"Our industry does not expect the configuration of 50 state vaccine processes overnight. However, the opportunity to prepare started back in March 2020."
Oshiokpekhai added: "The taskforce’s silence is deafening to our industry. What negotiations are under way with the Biden administration? Are they under way? We urgently need transparency to allow our industry to plan and recover."
Clive Wratten, chief executive of the Business Travel Association, echoed Oshiokpekhai’s comments. "Disappointingly, once again there has been no update from the transatlantic taskforce," said Wratten. "It is essential to the business world that this corridor is opened up safely without delay.”
Although the taskforce was tipped to be an effective means of reopening transatlantic links, The Telegraph on Tuesday (24 August) reported that the US could maintain its ban on UK travellers until late-November, indicating the goal of aligning the two nations’ international travel policies "as soon as possible" had not been met.
Furthermore, on Wednesday (25 August), Aer Lingus announced a further delay to the launch of its Manchester-US services due to the ongoing travel restrictions.
The carrier had been due to start non-stop flights from the north-west airport to New York JFK and Orlando from 29 July before this was pushed back until 30 September and now early-December.
