Holidays in ruins as France added to quarantine list
THE holiday plans of hundreds of thousands of families lay in ruins last night after France was declared a major Covid threat.
Ministers ordered against all but essential travel there after an alarming spike in cases, bringing an abrupt halt to the traditional summer getaway.
Around 500,000 Britons faced a scramble to cross the Channel before 4am this morning when new rules forcing them to quarantine for 14 days came into force.
The news sparked a stampede to ferry terminals, the Eurostar, Channel Tunnel and airports but operators were accused of fleecing passengers by ramping up prices. The price of a British Airways seat on a flight from Paris to London was 584 per cent higher yesterday than today.
Many holidaymakers resorted to private jets to get them home. Charter companies reported a huge spike in demand hours after the Government imposed restrictions. One operator, PrivateFly, said bookings had trebled.
Beleaguered
In a potential blow for the UK’s already beleaguered tourism industry, French authorities yesterday warned they would hit back and implement tit-fortat measures. The country’s secretary of state for European affairs Clement Beaune said it was a “British decision which we regret and which will lead to reciprocal measures”.
Which? Travel Editor Rory Boland said: “The burden of this decision disproportionally falls on holidaymakers – thousands of whom are likely to be left significantly out of pocket because their airline will refuse to refund them. Unlike tour operators, airlines now routinely ignore Foreign Office travel warnings and refuse refunds because, they argue, the flight is still operating.”
France was stripped of its safe status after reporting a sharp rise in coronavirus infections and immediately retaliated, saying it would bring in reciprocal measures effectively killing the propsects of those still looking to make the most of the last few weeks of the summer break. The rule change, which also applies to Corsica, Monaco, Holland and Malta, dealt a fresh blow to tourists, airlines and tour operators. Many tourists were forced to fork out hundreds of pounds to upgrade or change tickets without warning. British Airways was yesterday charging £452 for a direct flight from Paris to Heathrow. The same journey today could be made for just £66.
Tickets for Eurotunnel shot up to £260 with the operator later forced to issue a warning to those racing to the terminal in Calais that “there is no more ticket availability, and we are not selling tickets at check-in”. The cheapest ticket on a Eurostar train from Paris to London was £210 compared to today’s fare of £165.
Moments after Thursday’s latenight announcement one couple cut short their motorhome holiday in the Dordogne, drove nine hours through the night and forked out £238 for a ferry crossing from Calais to Dover.
The husband and wife, who asked not to be named, said:
“We had to do it to avoid quarantine.We just picked up all our stuff, chucked it in the motorhome and drove.
“We’re gutted because we were loving our break over there, but I just couldn’t afford to have to go into quarantine.”
Leanne and Paul Smith paid £3,000 for a Eurocamp holiday in France and were due to start the week-long trip with their two young children yesterday, but decided to head back to Manchester after driving six hours to catch the ferry at Dover.
Leanne, 39, said: “We were in bed in our hotel just waiting for the news to break. We knew it was going to be announced but we didn’t want to risk losing all our money.We’re gutted.”