AIRPORT bosses have slammed the UK's traffic light system for holding back the country's Covid recovery.

Stansted Airport is calling for an end to expensive PCR tests after publishing their July figures, which show that passenger levels were down 75 per cent on July 2019.

Figures show the airport served just 690,366 passengers compared to 2,758,524 two years ago.

Bosses said that since the review of the traffic light system on August 4 – which saw more countries added to the green and amber lists – volumes have picked up slightly but remain significantly below pre-pandemic levels.

Managing director, Steve Griffiths said: "While it is encouraging that more people are taking the opportunity to go on holiday or visit friends and family overseas, we are still yet to see a meaningful recovery in international travel.

“We won’t see a proper sustained recovery until the UK overhauls its costly and restrictive travel regime, which is out of step with the rest of Europe.

"UK passengers continue to be subjected to onerous and expensive PCR testing on the basis they will be sequenced to protect the UK from variants of concern, but it is clear this is not happening.

“Passengers - especially those who are fully vaccinated - will be right to question why they are forced to pay the extra cost for tests which are not being used in the way we were told they would be.

“Meanwhile, the recovery of our sector – which supports millions of jobs of billions of pounds in economic value – continues to lag significantly behind the rest of Europe as a result of excessive restrictions in place in the UK.

“We need a simple and sustainable system for travel, which people can understand and that is proportionate to the public health position here in the UK. The Government must act urgently to review the system and re-evaluate the need for expensive PCR tests.”