PM will clear foreign trips for take off
‘Travel without quarantine’
BORIS Johnson will give the green light to foreign holidays next Monday when the Government unveils its long-awaited travel corridor plan.
Ministers will say Britons can visit any one of ten countries without having to quarantine – reviving summer holidays after almost four months of travel restrictions.
‘Air bridges’ to France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey have been all but confirmed, sources disclosed, with the first flights set to take off on July 4.
The Mail has learned Portugal is likely to be included on the list of destinations, despite concerns over recent outbreaks of Covid-19 in the Algarve.
Ministers are even on the verge of coming to a deal with Australia, as long as flights connect via low-risk countries such as Singapore.
Dozens more countries will be added in coming weeks, including important business destinations, but the initial announcement will be focused on popular holiday routes to give an instant shot in the arm to Britain’s crippled travel industry.
The Foreign Office is also expected to relax its warning against all but essential global travel for the first time since lockdown was imposed in mid-March. Instead, the risk of Covid-19 will be set to low, medium or high depending on infection rates in individual countries.
The plans – to be announced on Monday – will be finalised and signed off today in a meeting with officials from Downing Street, the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Home and Foreign offices.
Airlines and airports are also expecting to be briefed on the plans today, giving them just over a week to prepare for the new holiday season.
Under the scheme, travel corridor nations are signing ‘memorandums of understanding’ with the Government, agreeing that whatever anti-coronavirus measures are taken in the UK must be mirrored by similarly stringent policies abroad. Giving examples to the transport committee yesterday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the other country having an equivalent to our test and trace system was important.
He also spoke of the need to consider the ‘level and trajectory’ of the virus abroad. Travel corridors will come as welcome news to the beleaguered tourism industry, with holiday firms and airlines likely to launch big promotions for last-minute holidays as soon as the announcement is made.
Ryanair has already seen a doubling of UK bookings for flights in July and
August since the beginning of June, and price comparison site Travel Supermarket say demand for holidays to Spain has doubled over the past week compared to the week before.
This comes as more than 4,500 airport workers in the UK and Ireland face the axe after Britain’s biggest airport ground handling company announced plans to shed more than half its staff. Swissport yesterday announced job cuts as the pandemic has damaged the aviation industry.
The firm employs 8,500 workers at airports across the UK, including baggage handlers and check-in staff.