When are cancelled flights to Greece likely to resume?

Q My easyJet flight to Kefalonia on 22 May has just been cancelled. Realistically I did think it would be touch and go – but I’m surprised at the timing, with nearly 10 weeks to go. Do you know up to when Greek flights are cancelled and when they may resume?

Linda B

A It seems that every day, thousands of prospective travellers are finding that their flights for early summer have been cancelled. I have heard similar stories from people whose British Airways and Ryanair departures have been axed. There is no coordinated grounding – just carriers cancelling specific departures.

Why, when excitement is growing for the potential resumption of international travel, should airlines – who constantly tell us they are desperate to be carrying passengers once again – be cancelling flights which evidently have fare-paying travellers booked on them? Sadly the answer seems to be there aren’t enough people booked on these early summer flights for the carriers to be sure they won’t be making a massive loss once again.

Consider the route from London Gatwick to Rhodes, which easyJet starts flying on 1 June, coming back a fortnight later. On the first departure, easyJet is charging an outbound fare of £144 – a decent fare for a journey of 1,725 miles. Very approximately, the direct operating costs for easyJet probably work out at about £100 per seat. So assuming a decent load (and the budget airlines are expert at filling those planes), if that fare can be maintained or increased then it makes sense for easyJet to fly it.

Or does it? The seat costs coming back are equally high, but the fares are not. On 15 June I can return from Rhodes to Gatwick for just £27. Airlines must take both legs into account when weighing up whether a rotation (there-and-back flight) is viable or will simply add to their financial woes. Add in the likelihood that a number of passengers on the grounded departure (possibly including you) will switch to the next available easyJet flight, and cancelling flights may, regrettably, be the least bad option at a time when there is so much uncertainty.

You could claim a full cash refund, but as I hope easyJet explained you can also exercise your entitlement to an alternative flight on the same day, organised and paid for by the cancelling airline. In your case, it would presumably be the same day’s Jet2 departure from Stansted, which is still showing as operating.

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Q Do you know if the government plans to review the “red list” of countries? My son is stuck in Dubai where he had to go for work in the middle of January. He took his wife and their 10-month-old as he knew he would have to be there for six weeks. They are anxious to return home to the UK but cannot afford to quarantine in a hotel – and certainly don’t want to stay in a room with a very young child. Are there any exemptions for people in this position? I’d be grateful for any update on the situation.

Claire M

A As of Monday morning, the government’s red list of high-risk nations has 33 members – including the UAE. A couple with a young child arriving from one of these countries must pay £2,400 for 11 nights in a quarantine hotel – which also includes two PCR tests on days two and eight of the stay. Your son is one of many people for whom this is simply intolerable. That is why only 100 or so people per day are arriving from red list nations (which they must do indirectly, as a result of a bizarre decision by the UK government).

Hotel quarantine was introduced as a result of political pressure and, perhaps predictably, has proved a waste of time and money; arrivals from red list locations were given weeks of warning, and so most turned up before the scheme started on 15 February.

I am expecting the first deletion from the red list to be Portugal, which – sources tell me – will leave the high-risk register on Monday (anyone in hotel quarantine from there, though, will need to finish their “sentence”).

Portugal currently has new infection rates one-sixth lower than the UK, while those in the UAE are three times higher. But the success of the vaccine programme across the emirates will soon see those numbers decline. Furthermore, the reason for the UAE’s inclusion was never quite clear, beyond the Emirates and Etihad air links with Africa – a characteristic shared with Qatar, which is not on the list.

So I expect to see some backpedalling soon, but that may not be for a few weeks. Meanwhile, a halfway house would be for your son and his family to move to Turkey for 10 days, where they will be able to stay relatively inexpensively while waiting for their time in the UAE to be “spent”. When they finally return to the UK from Turkey they will need to self-isolate at home for 10 days as things stand, though for England that can be reduced to five days if they take an additional test.

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Q Do you think Virgin Atlantic will ever return to Gatwick?

Richard S

A Sir Richard Branson’s airline closed its base at London’s second airport, Gatwick, in May 2020 with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs. Virgin Atlantic has a long and happy relationship with the Sussex airport. For the first seven years of its existence, from June 1984, Gatwick was Virgin’s only hub. In 1991 the “London Air Traffic Distribution Rules” were revised, opening the way for Virgin to fly from Heathrow. Its most profitable business-oriented routes were concentrated at the larger airport, where it competes head-on with British Airways.

But Gatwick remained as the home for leisure-focused links with Orlando in Florida and the Caribbean – many of them also in direct competition with BA and, for a while, Norwegian, though that transatlantic rival has now vanished. The coronavirus pandemic meant that almost all operations ceased. As the name suggests, Virgin Atlantic’s main business is between the UK and the US. But with almost all transatlantic travel banned, Virgin Atlantic has flown only a fraction of its normal schedule. Sadly, it can barely maintain one loss-making hub at Heathrow, let alone two.

At the time of the closure, Virgin Atlantic indicated it hoped to resume operations at Gatwick as soon as possible; its administrative HQ is barely a mile from the runway. But a lot must change before that happens. A one-London-base strategy makes sense in the present climate, offering savings on overheads and operational flexibility such as shuffling aircraft and staff. For a second hub in the capital to be viable, Virgin Atlantic will need to rebuild its operation at Heathrow to absorb all its slots – or decide, perhaps because of the high level of charges, to move some flights elsewhere.

Even then, a return to Gatwick is by no means a given. Virgin Atlantic is keen to build its hub in Manchester, especially with BA’s sister airline, Aer Lingus, muscling in, and may focus on that to the exclusion of all else. And if, five years from now, Virgin Atlantic did want an additional London base, Gatwick would be up against competition from Stansted. The Essex airport is desperate to secure a proper long-haul operation.

Ironically, Stansted was originally where Laker Airways was assigned for its Skytrain operation in 1977, though Sir Freddie Laker – who later advised Richard Branson on strategy – negotiated Gatwick for his transatlantic no-frills flights.

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