Only seven countries will remain on the UK’s travel red list from next Monday.
A total of 47 of the 54-strong list will be bumped up to the “rest of world” (ROW) list from 4am on Monday 11 October, including Mexico, Georgia and the entirety of Africa, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced this afternoon.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps also announced that the UK government will recognise the vaccines from 37 new countries from next week, meaning fully-vaccinated people travelling from countries such as South Africa and Hong Kong will be treated the same as fully-vaccinated UK nationals on arrival.
While Mr Shapps labelled the move a “major step forward”, some in the travel industry have called for greater clarification on what new post-arrival testing requirements will look like when the change takes effect.
A UK government source told the BBC ministers were aiming to replace the so-called day two “PCR test on arrival” with a cheaper lateral flow test by the half-term break, which for many schools in England falls in the last week of October. But they said the government was still working on a date for when the new testing rule would be introduced.
On the fence about an autumn holiday in case your destination slips on to the red list? Want a break with minimum tests and admin involved?
The Independent’s travel expert Simon Calder has followed every rule tweak and list move since travel was reinstated in May, and he’ll be on hand to answer your travel questions later today.
Whatever your travel dilemma, click on the article below to submit your questions in the comments box, then join live at the same link from 4-5pm today as Simon answers as many as he can, live.
Eurotunnel shuttle traffic remains way below pre-pandemic levels
The cross-Channel car shuttle provided by Eurotunnel saw a 6 per cent rise in passenger vehicles in September 2021 compared with a year earlier – but relative to 2019 traffic remains 43 per cent down.
Getlink, the company that owns and operates Eurotunnel said: “Le Shuttle transported 135,287 passenger vehicles, an increase of 6 per cent compared to September 2020." It said the rise was “driven by later holiday returns from UK customers linked to travel conditions that were less restrictive than during the same period in 2020”.
The firm does not give figures for passengers carried through the Channel Tunnel by Eurostar, which it has previously described as “severely disrupted as a result of government travel restrictions”.
Eurostar is currently operating a small fraction of its normal schedule.
UK government on US reopening: ‘Your guess is as good as mine’
Asked when vaccinated UK travellers will be able to fly freely to the US, a senior UK government source has told The Independent: “Your guess is as good as mine.
“They haven’t told us anything about the date. The White House are in charge of the policy and it’s very difficult to work out what is going on.”
The source admitted the UK was “blindsided” by President Biden’s announcement last month that he was relaxing restrictions for visitors from countries around the world from early November, from a date yet to be announced.
In response to a query about the date for the resumption of travel, the US Department of Transportation said only: “We have no updates or new information at this time.”
A snapshot of European aviation operations on Monday 4 October shows UK flights 41 per cent below the same day in 2019.
According to the director-general of Eurocontrol, Eamonn Brennan, the next worst performer is Germany, down 36 per cent, with France and Italy both down 28 per cent.
Greece actually showed a tiny increase, with 0.2 per cent more flights on 4 October compared with the same date in 2019.
Cheeky Ryanair tweet responds to customer wifi moan
Ryanair has quote-tweeted a customer who complained about its lack of onboard wifi, joking “Absolutely mind-blown to find out that water is in fact wet”.
The low-cost carrier was responding to a passenger who had tweeted: “Absolutely mind blown to find out there’s no wifi on Ryanair flights, absolute madness”.
The airline, which has fares from as low as £9.99 one way, is one of Europe’s most prominent no-frills carriers.
“You don’t get a hot towel either #shocking” responded fellow Twitter user @EarthPig89.
As we await an update to the UK’s red list this Wednesday or Thursday, travel industry bosses and data analysts have been making their predictions about which countries may leave or stay on the red list.
Expectations are high that South Africa could finally make the leap from red to ROW after the British High Commission in Pretoria tweeted a statement made jointly by UK diplomats and the South African government that said recent findings “will feed into the next review of UK border measures”.
But what about the other contenders that could potentially get an upgrade in the next announcement?
Data analyst Tim White, who reports on the global Covid statistics each week, told The Independent: “The main criteria now in keeping (or adding) countries on the red list is the risk of variants of coronavirus; case numbers should not really coming in to the equation unless there is an extremely high infection rate. So in effect I hope the Joint Biosecurity team has started with a blank sheet and only added those countries with variants.”
White, along with our travel correspondent Simon Calder, believes that South Africa has a good chance of coming off the red list.
“I imagine quite a lot of effort is being expended to find justifications for keeping the likes of South Africa on the red list for much of the year,” says Simon Calder.
“At the last round of changes, when the red list was reduced to ‘only’ 54 countries, most of the eight were crowd-pleasers including Egypt and Turkey. If the government wishes to generate more positive coverage, then you can expect to see Thailand, the Dominican Republic and South Africa all taken out of the mandatory hotel quarantine category.”
Meanwhile, analyst Donal Kane believes that Thailand, Indonesia and Namibia could all come off the red list this week.
Airline pandemic losses predicted to surpass $200bn next year
IATA revised its estimates of global losses last year from $126 billion to $137.7 billion and this year from $47.7 billion to $51.8 billion as members assembled for their annual general meeting in Boston.
It also forecast a loss of $11.6 billion for 2022, which would take its estimate of airlines’ total pandemic losses to $201 billion.
The organisation’s director general Willie Walsh said that airlines “have dramatically cut costs and adapted to whatever opportunities were available”, saying the industry was “well past the deepest point of the crisis.”
He urged governments to do “everything in their power to ensure vaccines are available to anybody who wants them.”
“The scale of this crisis needs solutions only governments can provide,” added Walsh.
Direct Line and Churchill ease some pandemic travel insurance restrictions
Direct Line and Churchill have removed some restrictions to travel cancellation cover which were put in place last year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The move will mean broader cover where claims relate to disruption caused by Covid-19 – and give customers greater confidence to travel if they wish to – according to UK Insurance Limited, which owns the brands.
From Tuesday, should Direct Line or Churchill customers’ travel plans be affected by a change in FCDO advice, they will have the option of either submitting a cancellation claim or continuing with their trip in the knowledge that they will continue to receive full protection from their policy if they choose to travel, it said.
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