Canary Islands added to quarantine list, with Botswana and Saudi Arabia removed

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• ChrisW says:

  10 Dec10 December 19:14

  That’s going to mess up a lot of Christmas plans.

  PS – Saudi Arabia is lovely this time of year 😂😂😂

• Mike says:

  10 Dec10 December 19:21

  Botswana has an incidence rate of 89 per 100k ppl on a 14-day rolling average basis for week 49 of 2020 (last available data). The country gets added to the UK’s travel corridor.

  The Canary Islands has an incidence rate of 70 per 100k in the same period. An improvement over the previous week, despite which it gets removed from the UK’s travel corridor.

  (By comparison, the UK is at 314 per 100k.)

  Once again, the incompetence of HM Government is resounding.

  • Eugene says:

    10 Dec10 December 19:39

    Absolutely . Its what happens when ministers get appointed for their fealty to Boris or to the big project. Either way most aren’t top drawer.
    Two hours spent doing handbrake turns and its now a week in Madeira at New Year not Tenerife ! Whew…

  • Dr C says:

    11 Dec11 December 22:04

    Neither of which are even worth bothering about

• Anna says:

  10 Dec10 December 20:03

  From The Guardian :

  “The World Travel and Tourism Council’s president, Gloria Guevara, said there were “compelling reasons” why the UK should be added to the EU’s exemption list to enable international travel to continue, including “relatively low Covid transmission compared with parts of Europe”.

  She said: “British travellers are a major contributor to European economies [and] the biggest proportion of inbound travellers to many major EU countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Cyprus.”

  Airlines said they remained confident that individual EU member states would exercise their right to allow British visitors “non-essential” travel, adding the UK to the list of exempt countries.”

  Sounds like the travel industry is already ramping up to oppose Brussels.

  • Bill says:

    10 Dec10 December 20:31

    Anna – why cite Brussels when each individual EU member state could exercise their right to allow travel ?

  • Paul Pogba says:

    11 Dec11 December 08:41

    It depends whether these decisions are based on politics, economics or public health. I assume it’s the latter and have no doubt that when this virus has passed our famed holidays to Malia and kavos will be back on for the reasons you state.

  • Paul says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:21

    EASA last week published a summary of the effects of various anti-transmission measures, and recommendations arising from them. Even setting aside a presumed bias from the commissioning body, the essential points were that either you stop all travel immediately and isolate effectively (NZ, AUS etc), or you may as well not bother doing anything. Depends which ‘science’ you wish to follow I suppose…

• Aaron says:

  10 Dec10 December 21:09

  Oh that’s wonderful news – can finally take that dream getaway to Chop Chop Square in Saudi.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    10 Dec10 December 22:03

    Saudi Arabia have suspended the relatively new tourist visa for the duration of the pandemic sadly. I was considering a visit this winter, on hold now of course. I had to make do with Tenerife, got back this afternoon, glad to have missed the quarantine obviously.

    • Amy says:

      11 Dec11 December 06:08

      Any idea when they will resume tourist visas?

  • Mike says:

    10 Dec10 December 22:16

    Have they suspended chop chop?

• Joe says:

  10 Dec10 December 21:11

  Landed back from lanza tonight (we went on Saturday) and I planned to come back today in case this would happen. Having lived covid (circumstances not had it) in chicago, buckinghamshire and holidayed in michigan and now lanza, I must say lanza was by far the best. Negative test to get in, strict masks everywhere, gloves to serve food at hotels, socially distanced tables etc. I really feel for the people with businesses etc there…

  On the plus side, CE was delightful both ways, superb crew, well loaded champagne, food ok for a box. Really reminded me of the old ba in the staff – flight out thought it was a fluke, but flight back too makes me think the good service might be back (for a while at least hopefully!)

• Mike says:

  11 Dec11 December 21:02

  Just landed back from TFS, having managed to get poor man’s business class (actually 3 whole rows to myself at the back!) on one of the last BA flights back. Was lovely but that was a damn expensive day trip LOL.

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