"It can only be a temporary measure," Heathrow Chief Executive John Holland-Kaye told BBC Radio on Friday.

"We need to have a roadmap for how we get out of this because aviation is vital to us as a small island trading nation."

He also said that vaccination programmes in Britain and other countries gave him hope for a travel recovery later this year.

"We'll see flights starting to come back and passenger numbers building up through the summer and then into the autumn," he said.

(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton)