NI tourist dodges hordes

AS tens of thousands of UK tourists in France scrambled for plane, train or ferry tickets before quarantine restrictions were imposed, one Northern Ireland woman said she had arrived at Paris airport four hours early to avoid any crush.

From 4am today, people arriving in the UK from France have to self-isolate for 14 days due to a rise in Covid-19 cases there.

“I’d thought it was going to be bedlam, but in fact it was strangely quiet,” PR executive Laura Rooney (35) said last night.

The Newtownabbey woman was in the French capital visiting a friend when she heard about the new rules.

She said she had been expecting such a move but decided to travel anyway. “I actually went to the airport four hours early today because I expected a stampede of Northern Ireland people trying to get home, but I was unbelievably surprised by how calm check-in was,” she added.

The new restrictions also apply to travellers returning to or visiting the UK from the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos and Aruba.

The Channel Tunnel was fully booked for vehicles yesterday.

A spokesman said 12,000 people had tried to book tickets in the hour after the new rules were announced, compared with just hundreds normally.

Some air fares were over six times higher than normal.

British Airways was selling tickets for a flight from Paris to London Heathrow last night for £452. The same journey could previously have been made for as little as £66. The cheapest ticket on a Eurostar train from Paris to London was £210.

Travellers in the south of France and the Netherlands faced a struggle getting back to the UK on Friday as many direct fights were sold out.

A 39-year-old dentist who gave her name as Sonata K was due to head to Paris on Eurostar for four nights with her mother, but she cancelled her plans after finding out about the quarantine measures at St Pancras yesterday morning.

She said: “It’s not worth it to go out and have to self-isolate. With my work I can’t do the procedures from home.

“We were too late to get the news. We’re just finding out here, but it’s better than on the train.”