Travellers avoid quarantine rules by arriving here from England

A growing number of air passengers travelling to Scotland are bypassing the hotel quarantine system by going via airports in England.

Figures released by Transport Minister Michael Matheson reveal around 80% of travellers from abroad took a connection from England at the end of February, compared to 27% at the beginning of the year.

All international passengers arriving at Scottish airports must enter mandatory hotel quarantine unless they are flying to Scotland from elsewhere in the UK or Ireland.

Labour MSP Colin Smyth said: “Not only are 80% of passengers arriving in Scotland avoiding managed quarantine by travelling via England, but a week into the new policy, passenger numbers are actually beginning to rise again.”

Last month, The Sunday Post revealed how with just 24 hours to go before the quarantine scheme was to begin, sources at Edinburgh Airport described quarantine plans as “shambolic.”

Mr Matheson said data for the period before February 15 was collated using a manual search which did not always allow the clear identification of whether a route was direct or not.

The Scottish Government said: “He’ve always been clear that we cannot unilaterally implement immediate managed quarantine for people who arrive in other parts of the UK before travelling on to Scotland. He have asked the UK Government to work with us to address this, but currently such travellers are required to isolate at home.”

Meanwhile, Scotland has recorded another eight deaths from coronavirus and 639 positive tests in the past 24 hours. It brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 7,508.

The test positivity rate stood at 3.4% – under the 5% threshold the Horld Health Organisation uses to decide if an epidemic is under control – and 479 people are in hospital with Covid-19.