Britain eases COVID-19 travel restrictions as industry lobbies for more
Susan Handfield (left) meets her baby granddaughter Charlotta for the first time, held by her mother Eva as they arrive from a Berlin flight at Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport in London on Aug 2, 2021. (Photo: AP/Matt Dunham)
LONDON: Britain opened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers from the US and the European Union on Monday (Aug 2) as travel industry leaders urged the government to further ease restrictions and allow people to enjoy the benefits of a successful COVID-19 inoculation programme.
The new rules came into effect amid reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government may add a new category to Britain’s traffic light system of travel restrictions, a move industry officials say would make many people decide to stay home.
As of Monday, fully vaccinated travellers from destinations on Britain’s “amber list” are allowed to enter the country without self-isolating for up to 10 days. The government is considering creating an amber watchlist to warn people about destinations that may be downgraded because of rising infection rates or the emergence of new variants.
“An amber watchlist will be viewed as a massive red flag, which is likely to cause bookings to those countries on that watchlist to collapse,’’ Huw Merriman, chairman of the House of Commons’ Transport Committee, told the BBC. “In my view, we don’t need any more uncertainty, complexity or anxiety for passengers or this beleaguered sector. It just needs clarity.”
British airlines and holiday companies are hoping for a late summer travel boom after the pandemic halted most international travel, slashing profits and threatening thousands of jobs. The number of passengers travelling through London's Heathrow Airport, the UK’s busiest airport, fell 75 per cent in the first half of this year.
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David and Susan Handfield were among the first beneficiaries of the new travel rules on Monday, seeing their granddaughter Charlotta for the first time after she and her parents stepped off a flight from Berlin.
Charlotta was born in February but virus concerns and travel restrictions prevented her parents from bringing her to London until now. Her grandmother greeted her with a delicate kiss to the forehead at Heathrow Airport.
“We’ve been waiting for this moment for quite a long time,'' said Susan Handfield, 70. “We only heard a week ago that they booked the flights.”
While the Handfields benefited from the rules change, other restrictions still prevent many people from flying. Travellers are required to take expensive polymerase chain reaction tests to prove they are virus-free and countries including the US still bar foreign travellers from crossing their borders.
John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s chief executive, said the British government should allow most travellers to use cheaper lateral flow tests and work with countries like the US to ease remaining travel restrictions. This is warranted by the UK’s successful vaccination programme, he said.
Almost 89 per cent of adults in Britain have received at least one dose of vaccine and 73 per cent have been fully vaccinated.
“This is a good start, we are showing that the vaccine is our passport to freedom,’’ Holland-Kaye said. “Let’s be confident in the vaccines. Tests show they work against delta and beta variants. So let’s start to show the vaccination will get us back to our lives as they used to be.”
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