Wednesday 8 April 2020

Dear AOA Member,

The Government last night published the more detailed guidance regarding social distancing measures in the workplace that I mentioned in last Thursday’s COVID-19 Update. This provides greater detail on how social distancing can be maintained where employees cannot work from home. Overall guidance on social distancing in the workplace can be found here whilst more sector-specific guidance can be found here.

One of our members drew our attention to updated guidance from the Health & Safety Executive on when to report COVID-19 infections under the reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences regulations (RIDDOR). We have raised concerns with the DfT around this, both because there is a clear overlap with PHE guidance to airports on reporting cases of COVID-19 among staff but also the impracticality of determining whether someone has become infected with the disease in the workplace, given the long incubation period and the community infection risks.

Lastly, we had a number of calls with civil servants today. The AOA team joined a weekly call with DfT Ministers Andrew Stephenson MP and Rachel Maclean MP to discuss freight, which was mainly focused on medium- to long-term issues. AOA and other aviation representatives highlighted the likely lag in passenger aviation recovering, which is concerning for air freight as it relies heavily on bellyhold freight. We also joined a call with the DfT around the communications challenges, in which we highlighted that as a sector we have put a lot of information to Government but on key issues are still awaiting clear responses from Ministers. They agreed to take that away…

Best wishes,

Karen Dee
Chief Executive