The British travel market is starting to gain some momentum

Britain’s Heathrow Airport says that passenger numbers have surged in July as the government eased travel restrictions.

The major hub warned that overall numbers were still down 80% on pre-pandemic levels as many barriers remain.

Heathrow says that in July over 1.5 million travellers passed through the airport, making it the busiest month since March 2020, just before COVID-19 lockdowns began.

Heathrow and airlines like British Airways have criticised Britain for not easing travel restrictions quickly enough despite its fast vaccine roll-out, and for complicated rules which continue to include expensive coronavirus tests.

Both wanted to see the cost of testing reduced and more countries added to the government’s list of low risk countries.

Heathrow also called on the UK and the United States to reach an agreement to allow Britons to travel to the U.S.

Last month, the government allowed fully vaccinated Britons to travel to medium risk countries without needing to quarantine on return, boosting passenger numbers by 74% compared to July last year.

Britain has since early August opened its borders to fully-vaccinated people from the U.S. and European Union.

Heathrow added that U.S. carrier JetBlue was due to start flying between London and New York later this week, in a sign of growing confidence in travel.