COVID TESTS 5 TIMES COST OF FLIGHTS

Revealed: Families’ crippling bills for foreign breaks

COVID travel tests can cost more than five times the price of a return flight to Europe, it emerged last night.

It leaves families paying hundreds of pounds extra to go abroad this summer with MPs branding the expense ‘a rip-off’.

Ministers face increasing pressure to cap how much travellers pay for PCR tests and scrap VAT on them to stop would-be holidaymakers from being priced out of foreign breaks.

A study by MPs looked at the cost of trips to popular European destinations later this month and compared them with the average fee for a single PCR swab after getting back to Britain.

It found Ryanair was offering return flights from East Midlands airport to Barcelona and Exeter to Alicante for just £18 between August 24 and 27.

But the typical charge for a postreturn PCR test among Governmentapproved providers is £93 – some five

times as expensive. The swab is also almost four times as costly as a return flight from London Stansted to Madrid.

And for destinations such as Berlin, Budapest and Faro in the Algarve, the test is more than double the price of plane tickets.

The research only includes the cost of a single post-return PCR swab, which double-jabbed travellers must take by day two after returning from a green or amber country.

It does not include the pre-return swab all passengers must take before boarding UK-bound planes, meaning testing bills as a proportion of flight costs can be even greater. Non-fully vaccinated holidaymakers also face much larger bills as they are required to take two post-return PCR swabs on days two and eight.

The Daily Mail has championed calls for the Government to drive down costs.

Tory MP Henry Smith, chairman of the all-party Future of Aviation Group, which conducted the study, said: ‘These figures demonstrate that testing for international travel has become little more than a tax on travel, adding a huge disincentive to travel.

‘When the cost of testing can be more than the price of a ticket, it is clear that the current system is not fit for purpose and needs urgent reform to stop the rip-off fees we are currently seeing.’

He said travellers should be allowed to take much cheaper rapid lateral flow tests on return followed by a ‘gold standard’ PCR only if this is positive.

He added: ‘Alongside this, ministers must urgently consider a cap on the total cost of testing. It is high time that the Government got to grips with this issue.’ Sir Graham Brady MP, chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, said: ‘The number of tests required and their exorbitant prices in the UK risk making foreign holidays the preserve of the well off.

‘This is plainly unfair to families on average incomes and risks destroying our very successful travel industry. This problem should be tackled as a matter of urgency.’

The study found a post-return PCR test can also cost more than return flights to Nice in southern France, Malta, Gibraltar and the Balearic island of Menorca, doubling the cost of a trip even for fully vaccinated individuals.

Carrier easyJet is offering return flights to Mahon in Menorca for £61 later this month, making the average cost of a test nearly 50 per cent more than the flights. British Airways is offering return flights from Heathrow to Paris for £100, making the typical post-return testing bill almost as expensive as the flights.

Ministers insist arrivals must take pricier PCR tests as they are considered more accurate and can be ‘sequenced’ for mutant Covid strains. But NHS Test and Trace figures show just 5 per cent of swabs are being sequenced. Greece and Italy have capped the price of PCR tests, while in France they are free for citizens. Some European countries have also axed VAT on testing kits.

The Government has repeatedly said it is working with the travel industry and testing providers to see how to ‘further reduce the cost of travel for the public’. Health secretary Sajid Javid has asked the Competition and Markets Authority watchdog to investigate whether travellers are being ripped off by testing firms.

But Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who sits on the Commons transport committee, said: ‘While the rest of Europe is enjoying a relatively normal summer on the beach, for many British families the cost of the tests and the confusing and chaotic traffic light system is putting the dream of a foreign holiday out of reach.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘We are clear that all private providers must meet a set of required standards and each provider is held to account by the independent United Kingdom Accreditation Service, with companies that fail to meet high standards being removed from the list of approved suppliers.’