Heathrow has urged the Government to act immediately to reopen the skies after reporting the COVID crisis has lost it £2.9bn to date.

It says failure to allow fully vaccinated travellers to fly to the European Union and US by the end of July will result in demands for more financial support from the industry.

Fewer than 4m people travelled through the airport during the first six months of 2021. In pre-pandemic times, that level of traffic would have passed through the airport in 18 days.

Heathrow posted a loss before tax of £868m compared to a figure just above £1bn for the same period last year.

CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “The UK is emerging from the worst effects of the health pandemic, but is falling behind its EU rivals in international trade by being slow to remove restrictions.

“Replacing PCR tests with lateral flow tests and opening up to EU and US vaccinated travellers at the end of July will start to get Britain’s economic recovery off the ground.”