SCOTTISH holidaymakers might be able to fly for a summer holiday to some destinations on the continent and avoid any coronavirus checks and quarantine, so long as they fly from Edinburgh, Inverness or Aberdeen airports, it has emerged.
The development came as the prospect of “travel corridors” with certain countries appeared to be growing with Turkey suggesting it had already agreed a provisional date in July to establish one with the UK.
The European Aviation Safety Agency[EASA] has drawn up a list of 13 high-risk UK airports to highlight those parts of the country with the highest levels of Covid-19.
While airports such as Glasgow, Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester are on the high risk list, others, including Edinburgh, Inverness or Aberdeen, are not.
Increasingly, EU countries, many of which rely heavily on the tourist trade to bolster their economies, are looking to relax travel restrictions as their coronavirus infection rates diminish.
On June 15, Greece will open its border to tourists for the first time since its lockdown in March. It says it will use the EASA system to help it judge which travellers from which airports will face the strictest tests with some travelling from low-risk ones not expected to face any.
Harry Theoharis, Greece’s tourism minister, said: "For the rest of the airports, testing is mandatory and for a certain amount of days you wait for the test results.
"If it is a negative result, then it is effectively a self-imposed quarantine of seven days but you can go ahead to your destination. If, however, it is a positive result, then it is a supervised quarantine for longer than seven days."
But EASA said there was confusion about its listing system and that, while some countries might use it to determine travel restrictions or public health measures like quarantine, it was not meant to be for this purpose; rather it was meant “simply to indicate routes on which extra disinfecting of aircraft should take place to avoid the spread of Covid-19”.
From Monday, the UK Government will introduce a 14-day quarantine for anyone travelling to Britain, barring a few exemptions, in order to stop any infection being imported as the country attempts to reduce the spread of Covid-19 at home. The policy will be subject to a three-week review.
However, Boris Johnson has made clear he is “actively considering” the idea of “travel corridors”.
On Tuesday at the daily Downing St briefing, the Prime Minister said: “Of course, we will explore the possibility of international travel corridors with countries with low rates of infection but only when the evidence shows it is safe to do so.”
But already there are suggestions that a provisional July 15 date for a resumption of travel between the UK and Turkey has been set.
Other destinations such as France, Spain, Portugal as well as Greece are also thought to be possibilities for similar arrangements.
Given the UK has one of the highest infections across Europe – earlier this week the daily number of deaths was more than the combined EU total – it might have been expected that countries in the Med and beyond might be wary of opening any travel corridor with Britain during the pandemic.
However, one Turkish Government official claimed an agreement with the UK was close, even suggesting a provisional date for the resumption of travel between the two countries had been set for July 15.
“The two sides are in close contact. The UK is a very important country for us,” he told the FT, stressing any final decision would depend on the level of British infections. Last year, 2.6m UK holidaymakers travelled to Turkey.
Spain, which is set to ease its 14-day quarantine from July 1, is in discussions with the German Government
But Reyes Maroto, the Spanish tourism minister, said: “We trust it will be very soon that we can receive British tourists.” The UK is Spain’s largest tourism market with last year more than 18 million Britons holidaying there.
Mr Johnson’s spokesman, when asked about the suggestion of a provisional holiday resumption deal with Turkey, stressed that he did “not have any details of any specific discussions,” but pointed to the PM’s desire to “work with our European partners” on the issue of travel corridors.
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