PLF will be gone ‘as soon as possible’, aviation minister tells airlines

The passenger locator form will be removed as soon as possible, according to the government.

Sources say the Department of Health, the chief medical officers and the Scottish government are against its removal.

Robert Courts told the Airlines UK annual dinner that they had heard your concerns in the passenger locator form. The secretary of state and I both want the PLF gone as soon as possible.

We have had one of the most open Covid regimes in the world. The government is Conservative. We will not become addicted to bureaucratic restrictions.

Courts promised that any future border requirements for Covid-19 would be proportional.

Many of you have given your time to develop the toolkit of options to deal with any future variant of concern, he told the audience. contingency measures will be used proportionately to the public health risk.

The minister did not say when the PLF will be removed. The PLF would be removed by March 18.

Huw Merriman, chair of the Transport Select Committee, told a Business Travel Association conference in London that he was pretty confident that the PLF would be dropped by Easter.

The Department of Health is opposed to the removal of the PLF.

The government hasn't said whether it will remove the testing requirements for unvaccinated passengers. The PLF is used by airlines and Border Force to identify arrivals.

The question is not do you get rid of the PLF, according to an airline source. Do you need to provide evidence of Covid vaccination at the border? We don't need the PLF if you don't.

The situation will change by the week. If there is no Covid vaccine certificate, the PLF could be removed.

The PLF needs to go according to a second aviation source. The Department for Transport thinks it should leave. Border Force is able to defy expectations.

Border Force documents talk about keeping health screening at the border. It is thought the PLF could stay. We don't know.

The Chief Medical Officers want the PLF retained, and Scotland wants to keep it.

The government may want to keep the PLF in case of variant. That would make sense. Should we keep filling it out?

We expect the review in the next couple of weeks. The Department of Health is not telling us anything.

Ireland removed the PLF from March 6 and Greece will do the same from March 15.