British Airways adds 16 Manchester / Heathrow – Porto flights for the Champions League final

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• Anna says:

  13 May13 May 17:03

  Hypothetical question – I have easyJet flights to OPO booked for summer next year, could I move them forward to the end of May?!
  You could also fly to Santiago de Compostela or Vigo in Spain to easily get to Porto, people have been doing this for years. Of course you might then be in an Amber country. But presumably then also allowed into Portugal?!

  • marcw says:

    13 May13 May 17:34

    Could be possible – based on the Spanish Tourism minister, UK residents will be able to enter Spain from the 20th of May for non-esential reasons. Let´s see though.

    • Rich says:

      13 May13 May 18:42

      I believe Portugal is still closed to non-essential travel. Including from Spain.

      • marcw says:

        13 May13 May 19:20

        The land border is fully open.

        • Rich says:

          13 May13 May 20:03

          Open for tourists, or open as in they’re not asking?

        • James Pleasant says:

          13 May13 May 21:51

          You can drive over with no passport check. Might help to have an EU number plate as they could always flag you down.

• Louise K says:

  13 May13 May 17:21

  Reading on Twitter that Portugal won’t be having UK visitors before 30th May.

  • @mkcol says:

    13 May13 May 18:42

    Yet Portugal haven’t actually decided on this yet.

    • meta says:

      13 May13 May 19:01

      They kind of had as state of emergency has been extended till 30 May this afternoon as per Portuguese newspapers.

      • Swifty says:

        13 May13 May 22:02

        Kitten this is definitely a crisis

        • kitten says:

          13 May13 May 22:38

          Yup It’s definitely a crisis now.

          They are going to have to find a way of getting it lifted for the football bl**dy quick

• r* says:

  13 May13 May 17:28

  Supposedly people wanting to go to the stadium will have to go directly from the airport to a fan zone and then after the match back to the airport and wont be allowed to go anywhere else. Not sure if true but be aware for anyone that might be considering going.

• Dace says:

  13 May13 May 17:29

  I got a flight in and out on Club Europe on Monday. Been looking all day for these to pop up for my Father and didn’t see them come up from London.

• Tom says:

  13 May13 May 17:29

  Reading online that fans will have to travel and return same day, on special club charters, and remain in a bubble throughout. Slight spanner in the works – surely they had talked about this before all the airlines started adding flights…

  • @mkcol says:

    13 May13 May 18:41

    Have to complete travel within 48 hours.

  • Tim says:

    13 May13 May 19:13

    That is pretty usual for special football flights. I’ve operated a few LPL based football flights and it’s generally a split duty, which means taking people out early morning, resting in a hotel, and then reporting to flight back through the following night after full time. People probably won’t care about bubbles as they’ll be drinking with the same group they have for 10yrs throughout.

• Andrew says:

  13 May13 May 19:01

  Clearly BA will be cancelling all these flights now as Portugal isn’t opening up until the end of May at the earliest.

• Matt says:

  13 May13 May 19:12

  All the press reports about the Portugal ban seem to be coming from the “well respected” (Daily Mail words not mine) Paul Charles from PC Travel who has “heard from an inside source”.

  He is regularly quoted as almost gospel by every newspaper that will read his Twitter feed predictions. However his green list predictions were completely wrong. Only worse predictor was the other well respected travel journalist Simon Calder.

  Also last week PC was all over the press claiming inside information that Grant Shapps’s press conference was moved to 5pm to coordinate with the US DOT announcing a transatlantic quarantine free travel corridor. He was touting his credible knowledge to anybody. Of course that info was absolutely bull…

  This may indeed turn out to be true but I have low confidence in making any decisions based on this unreliable source.

  • Anna says:

    13 May13 May 20:58

    I treat every utterance from anyone in the travel industry as an attempt to get people to book holidays, whether they are likely to go ahead or not!

    • James Pleasant says:

      13 May13 May 21:06

      Simon Calder does OK on the whole – as does PC Travel.

      They can’t get it right every time and their analysis is worth a look, you don’t have to accept everything the say as gospel.

      Would you rather they didn’t post anything or have any views?

      • meta says:

        13 May13 May 21:22

        It’s not a trusted resource. If you read any of the major Portuguese media, you will know that state of emergency has been extended till end of the month. Especially in this day and age it’s not hard to read news from other countries…

        • Kevin B says:

          14 May14 May 09:05

          If you read the English version of the Portuguese press, the state of Calamity is independent of non-essential travel opening up and they still expect to allow us in from May 17th!

        • HBommie says:

          14 May14 May 09:50

          @KevinB really?
          I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

• Rich says:

  13 May13 May 20:11

  ‘No decision yet’ on tourism from next week, according to gov spokes following this afternoon’s cabinet meeting. So it’s not a no!

  The arrangements for the Champions League may just be belt and braces to give a guarantee to fans. Still possible they may be able to arrive as tourists.

  • M says:

    13 May13 May 20:18

    Apparently the move to Porto hasn’t yet been confirmed either, so looks like its all under negotiation.

    According to press Portugal will only allow fans to arrive on designated charter flights on the morning of the match, will be escorted through a separate part of the airport straight to the stadium and will then be escorted back to the airport to fly back the same night. Chelsea and Man City should just say “it ridiculous and we aren’t asking our fans to do this, we’ll only play in the UK”

    Don’t know what BA is going to do with these flights if all this is true.

    • Rich says:

      13 May13 May 20:55

      They only went on sale today. I suspect they can cancel and refund if necessary without too much outlay

    • BuildBackBetter says:

      13 May13 May 21:43

      If only it was that simple. Uefa wanted thousands of tickets for themselves with no quarantine restrictions for anyone.

      In any case, why should we worry about 100 city fans attending a match?

      • Rob says:

        13 May13 May 23:14

        Each team gets 5,000 tickets IIRC.

    • r* says:

      13 May13 May 22:40

      No. Uefa wanted to allow sponsors and uefa officials to come in without quarantine, it wasnt fans and journalists. Why should uk citizens be forced to quarantine when some gazprom executive doesnt?

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