Now more than 50 countries ban f lights from UK
BRITONS hoping f or a Christmas or New Year getaway were f acing more travel misery yesterday after the number of countries banning flights from the UK rose above 50.
The Caribbean destinations of Jamaica, Grenada and the Dominican Republic were among the latest to shut their doors to UK travellers.
It means around 53 countries across five continents have either banned inbound flights or cut all passenger air travel with the UK since Sunday over the discovery of the mutant coronavirus strain.
Some countries extended their bans while others warned of stricter measures for allowing in travellers from the UK.
Belgium, t he Netherlands, Greece and Cyprus, which are planning to lift their curbs, will require Britons to prove a preflight negative test and quarantine on arrival.
Ministers last night came under renewed pressure to ramp up general and in-airport testing capac
‘Unfair and unjustified’
ity to ensure trips can go ahead. Stewart Wingate, Gatwick Airport chief executive, said: ‘Now, more than ever in this pandemic we need the Government to move swiftly and work with other countries to put in place a low cost, efficient and accurate pre-departure testing regime which is consistent for all international travel.’ Heathrow has also called for testing capacity to be boosted.
Cancelled inbound flights have left thousands of Britons abroad facing huge anxiety about whether they can get back in time to see loved ones at Christmas.
Airlines are dispatching empty flights to affected countries to ensure everyone who had return trips cancelled can get back. They are also offering flight changes free of charge. But many are facing longer waits to return and possibly missing spending the festive period with loved ones.
It is believed around 250,000 outbound and inbound travellers could be affected by the bans between now and January 1, with the travel sector taking a £400million hit. Industry figures said the number of bans was unprecedented. Paul Charles of travel consultancy The PC Agency said: ‘It’s destroying confidence in people booking. Each day you’re looking at about 10,000 people being affected by the bans.’
France and Germany have called for a more ‘coordinated’ EU-wide response to fighting the new variant.
Yesterday the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, issued recommendations including that bans ‘of transport services, such as flight or train bans, should be discontinued’. It said ‘non-essential travel’ to and from Britain should be ‘discouraged’, but that European governments need to do more to ensure essential journeys can still be made.
But the decree is not legally binding so it is down to individual governments to decide what to do on their borders.
In another sign of the difficulty of getting the EU to agree to a unified response, Germany’s southern region of Bavaria announced its own measures for travellers arriving at Munich airport. Bavarian premier Markus Soder tweeted that holidaymakers would need to present a negative PCR test from the previous 48 hours, or agree to be immediately tested upon arrival.
Baroness Ruby McGregorSmith, chairman of the Airport Operators Association, told the Mail the travel bans were ‘unfair and unjustified’. She called on ministers to strike agreements with countries to get the bans lifted and ramp up testing.
She said: ‘The message we’ve had since early summer is that we need testing at airports on all flights in and out of the country and the reasons we want capacity built is because of exactly what’s happened now.’