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Month: May 2020
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Gold Medal and Travel 2 extend out of assortment availability into 2022
Coronavirus: Priti Patel to announce 14-day quarantine for UK arrivals from June
Shortly after 5pm on Friday, Priti Patel will reveal details of the UK’s first mandatory quarantine order.
The home secretary will use the No 10 daily briefing to confirm that from early June – possibly as early as the first of the month – travellers arriving in the UK by air, sea or rail must self-isolate at home for 14 days.
Journeys within the Common Travel Area, covering the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, will be exempt.
Some essential professions, including truck drivers, government officials and medical staff travelling for work, will also escape the obligation to remain at home for two weeks.
Travellers will be required to provide the address where they will spend the ensuing two weeks. Fines of £1,000 or more for those who breach self-isolation have been proposed.
Ms Patel will also set out arrangements for arriving travellers with no home to go to. They will be required to stay put in accommodation arranged by the government.
Even though the World Health Organisation backs mandatory isolation of arriving travellers only in the earlier stages of an outbreak, Downing Street sees it as an eye-catching and popular move.
The government says: “Now that domestic transmission within the UK is coming under control, and other countries begin to lift lockdown measures, it is the right time to prepare new measures at the border.”
Ministers have trailed the quarantine policy all month, with multiple and often contradictory briefings to journalists.
Boris Johnson formally announced a version of quarantine on 10 May, initially saying it applied only to arrivals by air.
Another potential loophole emerged when No 10 briefed that the prime minister had struck a deal with President Macron for a bilateral exemption with France.
That possibility was subsequently retracted. But as heated discussions continued over a policy that is certain to damage Britain’s ailing travel industry still further, the transport secretary floated the option of “air bridges”.
Grant Shapps’ proposal for certain nations signing mutual quarantine-free deals with the UK was rebutted by Downing Street.
But The Independent understands that when quarantine comes up for review, air-bridge arrangements are likely to be used to justify lifting the 14-day obligation for arrivals from the most popular holiday destinations.
Ms Patel’s announcement will have the immediate effects of encouraging anyone who was planning to travel to the UK in the near future to do so by the end of May, and deterring British holidaymakers from going abroad.
The move comes just as travel businesses were aiming to restart operations. The timing will defeat “Project Lift-off,” and instead trigger the widespread cancellation of flights and holidays while stifling new bookings.
The travel industry believes that no significant fresh outbound sales will be made while the open-ended prospect remains of a fortnight’s mandatory self-isolation on return.
Businesses have called for quarantine to last a matter of weeks rather than months, in the hope that something can be salvaged from the main holiday months of July and August.
Millions of holidaymakers with forward bookings for the summer will now demand to know from tour operators and airlines whether or not their trips are going ahead.
The two biggest holiday companies, Tui and Jet2, were planning to restart operations in mid-June. They are likely to cancel packages at least until July.
Anticipating the announcement, Tui is now offering holidaymakers booked to travel in June, July or August the opportunity to postpone their trips.
Quarantine will also wipe out inbound tourism and business travel for the early part of the summer.
British Airways planned to commence operations at scale in July, but had said that quarantine could kill off the plan.
Ryanair and easyJet are also aiming to launch a wide range of services in July. Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, has predicted the quarantine policy will be widely flouted.
“People will simply ignore something which is so hopelessly defective,” he said.
TTG – Vacation sector news
21 Might 2020by James Chapple
Greek tourism minister suggests UK’s file on coronavirus not at the moment excellent plenty of for Britons to be allowed to go to when tourist period commences on 15 June
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VisitEngland urges MPs to back English Tourism 7 days
Once-a-year celebration of country’s tourism sector to be held on-line over 25-31 May well
90 excruciating seconds at the Transport Select Committee
“Minister, we haven’t got much time, so some pithy answers please, rather than vacuous, long-winded ones.”
The speaker was Karl McCartney, the Conservative MP for Lincoln. He was addressing his parliamentary colleague, Kelly Tolhurst.
Ms Tolhurst is the aviation minister, and she was answering questions during Wednesday’s hearing of the Transport Select Committee.
MPs on the committee are taking evidence about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the travel industry.
As you will know, one of the key topics is the impending quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK.
The government will bring in 14 days of mandatory self-isolation early in June. It says: “Now that domestic transmission within the UK is coming under control, and other countries begin to lift lockdown measures, it is the right time to prepare new measures at the border.”
Whether by accident or design, the quarantine policy has potential to cause even more damage than the immense harm already wrought upon the UK travel industry by the coronavirus pandemic.
Almost no one is going to want to travel to Britain with the prospect of spending the next two weeks unable to venture outside. That includes those of us who are desperate for a holiday abroad but cannot contemplate 14 days of self-isolation at the end of it.
We all hope that the spread of Covid-19 will remain under control. It is a safe bet that other countries will be lifting lockdown measures for many months. So I predict the justification for quarantine will prevail for the rest of the year.
Given the imminent deployment of an unprecedented measure with the potential to destroy every UK airline and holiday company, it was unsurprising that MPs wanted answers from the minister about quarantine: when it will start, how it will work and – crucially – what needs to change for the travel-crushing measure to be lifted.
I have watched the excruciating 90-second exchange between Mr McCartney and his fellow Tory several times.
“Are you going to reconsider the 14-day period?” he asks.
“So obviously that’s something that is being led by the Home Office, so obviously these things are under review,” replied the minister.
“So that’s a ‘no’,” he concludes – and asks about arrivals to the UK who would be exempt from the need to go home and stay there.
“So obviously in relation to the exemptions, the exemption lists are being looked and finalised, and obviously – ”
“Yes or no,” demanded Mr McCartney.
“Well, I haven’t – we haven’t – got the full lists, that’s work that’s been ongoing, around what would be on the exemption lists and ultimately, as the DfT I’ve been very focused on making sure that …”
As the unfortunate minister wittered on, the exchange became even more heated before Mr McCartney handed back to the chair.
1/11 Ben Gurion International airport, Israel
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4/11 Noi Bai International Airport, Vietnam
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7/11 Shanghai Pudong Airport in Shanghai, China
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8/11 Daxing International Airport, Beijing
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10/11 Shanghai Pudong Airport in Shanghai, China
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11/11 Noi Bai International Airport, Vietnam
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1/11 Ben Gurion International airport, Israel
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2/11 Daxing International Airport, Beijing
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3/11 Taoyuan International Airport, Taiwan
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4/11 Noi Bai International Airport, Vietnam
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5/11 Haneda Airport, Tokyo
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6/11 Changsha Huanghua International Airport, China
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7/11 Shanghai Pudong Airport in Shanghai, China
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8/11 Daxing International Airport, Beijing
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10/11 Shanghai Pudong Airport in Shanghai, China
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11/11 Noi Bai International Airport, Vietnam
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Kelly Tolhurst deserves sympathy. The MPs on the transport committee know that, collectively, many tens of thousands of their constituents depend on travel for their livelihoods.
Many more of their voters are booked to go on holiday as early as 12 June, the date Tui plans to re-start departures. And yet they have no way of knowing whether a condition of their annual holiday will be sitting inside for a fortnight on returning home.
All that you, me and the mystified MPs know about the quarantine policy we glean from briefings and counter-briefings by No 10 and the Department for Transport.
In an all-too-public forum, the hapless junior minister was obliged to to defend a quarantine policy that her department and almost anyone connected with travel thinks, in the words of Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, is both intensely destructive and “absolutely bonkers” (a fellow airline chief executive used a rather stronger term in private).
No wonder Kelly Tolhurst’s bluster exasperated her fellow MPs with vacuous, long-winded answers. At a time when everyone needs clarity, all she could honestly offer was meaningless prevarication. But it wasn’t her fault.
Tui's Flintham: 'We know we haven't obtained it proper on refunds'
Operator launches self-company refund tool, and introduces greater flexibility on amendments
Coronavirus: Tui admits ‘we have not obtained it right’ around refunds
Britain’s most significant holiday getaway company has admitted blunders over refunds for disappointed clients.
Tui’s controlling director, Andrew Flintham, has sent an e-mail to hundreds of 1000’s of discouraged holidaymakers, headed: “We’re sorry”.
Mr Flintham writes: “It’s challenging to think that in a matter of just months, we’ve long gone from using our shoppers on holiday getaway all about the environment, to getting forced to terminate holidays for approximately a million prospects.
“It’s definitely been a finding out curve for us, and I’ll be the initially to acknowledge we did not always get it ideal.
“I’d like to apologise for the frustration you may have felt. I’d like to guarantee you that we’re committed to accomplishing almost everything we can to make items greater.”
Tui has been greatly criticised for telling clients whose holidays have been cancelled that they have to take a “refund credit history note” and then telephone the corporation to talk to for a refund.
The solitary telephone amount is frequently engaged or, after an automatic reply, drops off the caller.
The holiday company is promising a new, enhanced system that will make it possible for clients to ask for refunds on line and manage long term bookings – usually suspending imminent outings.
Tui has cancelled all holiday seasons up to and like 11 June. All the afflicted travellers can now access a self-assistance section on the website to use for a money refund.
The corporation has also put in a cellular phone services for buyers of its high street journey agencies, which are all at this time closed. They can contact 020 3451 2688 between 9am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.
Mr Flintham indications off: “I’d like to apologise that points have taken for a longer time than they ought to have, we will make certain that we’re superior in the long run.”
The organization, along with other getaway firms and airways, is unable to offer buyers because of to travel from 12 June onwards for the reason that the federal government has not yet revealed specifics of the quarantine procedures it will impose on British isles arrivals up coming thirty day period.
European tourism 'can restart in July' – O'Leary
Ryanair manager states new EU secure flying advice will allow for Europe’s tourism market to restart this summer