LONDON (REUTERS) - Britain's Heathrow Airport called on the government to open up the country to vaccinated travellers from the European Union and United States from the end of this month to help fuel a travel recovery after another torrid six months.

Heathrow, which before the Covid-19 pandemic was the busiest airport in Europe, said that fewer than four million people travelled through it in the first half of 2021, a level which would have been surpassed by 18 days' worth of 2019's traffic.

"The UK... is falling behind its EU rivals in international trade by being slow to remove restrictions," Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said in a statement on Monday (July 26).

For the six months to June 30, Heathrow posted an adjusted loss before tax of £787 million (S$1.47 billion), compared with the £471 million loss for the same period last year, which was only half-affected by the pandemic.