Holiday Britons in dash to get out of Portugal

Hotspot could be back on quarantine list in days

TENS of thousands of British holidaymakers are facing a scramble to get home amid fears Portugal will be re-added to the quarantine list.

The number of coronavirus cases over seven days in the country jumped to 21.1 per 100,000 people yesterday.

This is above the Government’s threshold of 20 and means it is likely to face fresh quarantine restrictions by the end of the week.

The blow comes just two weeks after Portugal was taken off the ‘red’ list of countries requiring arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days.

An announcement is likely on Thursday

‘It’s been year from hell’

night, but insiders say it could come sooner unless there is a ‘miracle drop’ in cases.

Industry experts say an estimated 75,000 British holidaymakers will be affected.

The move caps off a summer of misery for the travel industry. The Daily Mail can today reveal one million flights have been cancelled since March. The bleak figure was reached last week after new quarantine restrictions on France.

Airline bosses say the crisis has ended a golden era of aviation and warned of dire times ahead.

Since March, the disruption has ruined millions of travel plans and left holidaymakers chasing an estimated £10billion in refunds.

It has also put 800,000 British jobs at risk, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Other industry estimates say the true total of potential job losses is closer to three million. The latest IATA estimates predict the economy will lose £44.7billion this year as a result of travel restrictions.

It comes amid a deepening row over airport Covid testing that airlines say could open up the skies.

More than 80 MPs have warned that failure to endorse it will have a disastrous impact on the industry and wider economy.

Senior aviation bosses, including Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye, say quarantine measures have hung the ‘Closed’ sign on Britain and are costing the economy £60million a day in lost spending by foreign visitors.

But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has repeatedly played down the idea, claiming swab tests on passengers arriving would fail to spot almost 90 per cent of asymptomatic cases.

Before the pandemic, air passengers could fly to 1,200 destinations from the UK. But a collapse in demand means the number has dropped by half.

According to data from Eurocontrol, which coordinates air traffic across the continent, an estimated one million UK flights have been cancelled since the beginning of the crisis due to a collapse in passenger numbers.

British Airways is operating less than 20 per cent of its pre-pandemic flying schedule.

And Heathrow has temporarily closed one of its two runways.

The Government’s quarantine rules for arrivals has also had a harsh impact on British businesses that rely on foreign visitors. Bookings are down by an average of 92 per cent and spending by international tourists has dropped by 79 per cent in the last year.

According to trade body UKinbound, a total of 10,000 jobs will be lost when the furlough scheme comes to an end in October.

Tim Alderslade, boss of trade body Airlines UK, said: ‘It’s been the year from hell. Without Government support, the winter promises to be truly awful.’

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