There's lots of work travel company employees could have been doing rather than the company taking taking money for them doing nothing. Look at the number of customers that have struggled to get in touch to change holidays or request refunds. That said, press X to make a payment or buy a holiday and the phones are answered within minutes rather than hours.

Is that not classed as discrimination??? How can our government pick and choose what employment sectors can extra help and what doesn’t?? Thousands of jobs have already been lost and more will follow. #travelindustryjobsmatter

The Irish government employee support scheme pays people to work rather than not to work. Doesn't that make more sense? Like all travel companies, we've furloughed a load of people who could have been helping out with customer service, writing content, conducting UX studies, outbound calling etc. etc. The Irish government have also extended their scheme until March 2021 in light of the fact that the winter is likely to be fairly grim.
The UK government - after saying that they could and would not help any specific sector - provided a tax break to the UK hospitality sector and gave people vouchers to eat half price burgers. The next week they told everyone to lose weight. Anyone get the feeling that they're making it up as they go along?

Eat Out to Help Out is not much use to Virgin Atlantic or Hays Travel! Why didn't the BBC (which is funded by us viewers - TV Licence Fee payers) press him on Outbound Travel Sector? A sycophantic and meaningless interview. Likewise, the Bank of England Governor was not interested in the interviews with him yesterday, by most of the UK News Channels, in discussing the massive economic and social impact of ending the Furlough scheme.