Spain, Portugal and Greece To Be The First Air Bridges
The UK’s largest tour operator, Tui, has declared it will be toiling 8-short-haul destinations from eleventh July, proffering Brits a sharp-hint of summer travel plans. This Flights and Cruises operator will fly patrons from Birmingham, Gatwick, and Manchester. With latest protection measures onboard, the flights will take off to Spain’s Canary Islands – Tenerife and Lanzarote, the Greek islands of Corfu, Crete, Kos and Rhodes; and Majorca and Ibiza in the Balearics.
Richard Sofer, Tui’s commercial director, displayed faith that the UK will have lifted the mandatory 14-day quarantine presently imposed on all arrivals by this date. “Due to the size of our organisation we’ve been able to have a presence in each of those government conversations through our aviation team or through the senior members of the UK business. We’re well-informed of where those discussions are. Many of those conversations are confidential but that gives us great confidence to open up a small programme to a few key countries, that will become the eight key gateways for us. We have absolute confidence that we’re going to be getting a positive result from the government in time for July,” he said.
Portugal, on the other hand, is aspiring to be among the first countries to build a quarantine-free Air Bridge to the UK. It will permit citizens flying between both countries to bypass quarantine measures. Portugal’s ambassador to the UK, Manuel Lobo Antunes, said the government was ardent to come to an understanding that would enable British tourists to revisit this summer. He told BBC Radio, “We think the situation is under control and we would be happy to receive, as before, as many British as possible.” Boris Johnson is believed, to declare a ‘diminutive’ number of two-sided air bridge orderings on 29th June. It will help connect Brits to nearby destinations with low coronavirus levels from fourth July.
At present, the UK is focusing on countries such as Spain, France, Portugal and Greece. Under new arrangements, travellers would not have to endure quarantine when arriving at the destination nor will they undergo the two-week quarantine while arriving in the UK. Air-Bridges will be active after the Foreign Office lifts limitation on travel and receives approval from the key medical officers. The UK has advised against all travel since March twenty third.
