IATA boss Willie Walsh accuses airports of ripping off passengers and airlines. The former IAG boss was apparently particularly negative about the prices for PCR tests in the United Kingdom. These would be exorbitantly high and would discourage passengers from traveling.

During the most recent IATA conference in Geneva, his colleague on the board, Hemant Mistry, criticized the fact that the pandemic had also gradually increased infrastructure costs. Some airports would even “levy enormous surcharges in order to compensate for the decline in sales caused by the pandemic”. It is about several billion US dollars a year. Air traffic control costs would also rise by 40 percent in the coming year. Even now, price increases of over 50 percent would not be uncommon in Europe. The accusation: the infrastructure operators would squeeze the already badly battered airlines like a lemon.

Willie Walsh reiterated his call for governments to relax travel restrictions. He also pointed out that only a very small proportion of the cost-intensive PCR tests should be positive. In other regions of the world, for example in Russia and China, the number of flights would be even higher than before the pandemic.