Covid-19: Dubai Airports CEO hopeful of UAE moving to UK amber list soon

Dubai - He also rejected the idea that vaccine passports are discriminatory.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, hopes that the UAE could be on the UK’s amber list soon.

The UK has placed the UAE in the list of red countries. UAE residents flying to the UK will, therefore, have to undergo a mandatory 10-day hotel quarantine upon arrival.

Griffiths sees that the UAE could stay a bit longer on the UK’s red list before moving down to another category.

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“Not this announcement, but I hope the next announcement will see a change in heart," he told Dubai Eye’s Business Break. "Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport is open to receive flights from the countries that are on the red list. We think that we should have direct flights back to Heathrow and other points in the UK very soon.”

“At the moment, the two governments are exchanging data very rapidly. I don’t think that we have much good news in the immediate future… I think travel between the UAE and the UK can be made safer with everything that we have done to make it safe,” he said.

Dubai Airports CEO rejected the idea that vaccine passports are discriminatory.

“It is not that the vaccine passport idea is discriminatory. There are enough vaccines on the planet to vaccinate every single person. Unfortunately, the distribution is not equitable. We could sort that out and move very quickly. Only 5.5 per cent of the world’s population has been fully vaccinated,” Griffiths said.

“If we could accelerate that, that would open up travel much more quickly. But that is going to take a long time. Initially, this testing regime that we have got in place with Italy is an initial step... Vaccine passports are not far behind and that is going to be a big push on the travel front,” he added.

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai