Will the coronavirus pandemic ruin my April holiday in Malta?

Q I’m due to fly to Malta on 30 April but I’m unsure if I should change the date. Am I being too cautious or should I wait and see?

Shella S

A I presume you booked within the past few months to travel to the central Mediterranean. I empathise with that decision because we all want something to look forward to, and a holiday is the best form of anticipation.

Where could be better than the beautiful and profoundly historic island of Malta – except possibly its sister isle of Gozo? Whether you wish to seek out the rich heritage, laze on the beach or eat and drink by the waterside, late spring and early summer is a wonderful time to be there.

During the months before your holiday is due to depart, all manner of things will happen in this wretched crisis. I very much hope that the vaccination programme in the UK, Malta and the rest of Europe will have protected the most vulnerable from coronavirus.

When even a quarter of the population is vaccinated – assuming the highest risk groups are targeted for the jab – the overall threat posed by Covid-19 shrinks dramatically. Therefore nations such as Malta will be looking to restart their travel industry at scale, in order to protect their economy and the livelihoods of thousands of people.

Having said that, we have all learnt during the pandemic that things never go exactly according to plan. So keep your expectations realistic. Don’t do anything to change the original itinerary at this stage.

Assuming it is a proper package holiday then you can relax in the knowledge that you will either get the trip as booked or your money refunded. The holiday company will let you know a week or two before departure if the trip has to be cancelled. I know this looks like very little notice, but understandably they wish to run the departure that you have booked and will wait until the last possible moment before removing that delicious prospect.

If my confidence is misplaced and the trip is called off, consider carefully whether to rebook for a later date or to pocket a full refund so that you can then make an informed decision later in the year for the best great escape.

Q In your story on Aer Lingus flying from Manchester to various US cities from the coming summer, you suggested that Irish passengers wishing to fly from Cork or Belfast to Boston might have to fly to England first. Surely that isn’t economical?

Name supplied

A Until Thomas Cook Airlines collapsed in September 2019, the carrier had a strong US operation from Manchester airport. Now Aer Lingus (UK) Ltd, a new British offshoot of the Irish airline, has asked for permission to fly from Manchester to New York, Boston and Orlando from the summer.

The Irish carrier is a sister airline of British Airways within the IAG consortium – but a lower-cost business able to make a profit on routes that BA has long abandoned.

These new links are aimed squarely at travellers from the Midlands, the north of England, north Wales and Scotland. But any network airline such as Aer Lingus will seek to take advantage of possible feed: passengers transferring from short-haul flights to long-haul. Since Aer Lingus has existing links from Belfast, Cork and, for that matter, Dublin to Manchester, it makes sense for such connections to be advertised and sold.

The idea with these kinds of links is to tweak the fares to help fill otherwise unsold seats when necessary. For example, on the route between Manchester and Orlando on a summer Saturday in August, Aer Lingus will intend to sell every seat at good fares for the “point-to-point” trip; the price of a Belfast-Manchester-Orlando ticket would be astronomical. But on a wet Wednesday in October, the airline will know that local demand will simply not fill the plane. So it is rational to sell seats at only £1 more than the marginal cost of providing that seat – which could mean a round trip of well under £300.

Other factors are at work, of course; if the fares are too low, then the Aer Lingus core market in Dublin might be tempted to make a roundabout trip via Belfast and Manchester, so each flight is micro-managed.

I am always on the lookout for such deals, and often find that online travel agents – which I otherwise avoid – market combinations that you would not normally expect to find, such as Toronto-Amsterdam-Gatwick on Air Canada and British Airways for barely £100 one-way.

Q Do you know when the next update from the government will be on countries exempt from quarantine? With its flattening number of cases, I’m hoping mainland Greece may flip back to being exempt before my scheduled flight back via Athens from Crete on 13 January. Do you think there is any chance?

Michael S

A For months, the transport secretary has given an update on go/no-go destinations at 5pm on Thursdays – with Grant Shapps announcing which countries have been granted “travel corridor” status, or had it removed.

It matters for tourists because a travel corridor means there is no need to self-isolate for 10 days on return to the UK. Crete, where you are, is one of very few locations in Europe from which quarantine is not required. But as you and British travellers in the other major Greek isles of Corfu, Kos, Rhodes and Zakynthos will know, this means nothing – because there are no direct flights from the islands to the UK in winter.

Nor are there any connecting flights via “safe” third countries in Europe, which currently include Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway and the Portuguese island of Madeira. So you will have to fly back via Athens, and the 75 minutes you spend in the transit area at the Greek capital’s airport will trigger 10 days of self-isolation. You will be prohibited from leaving your home save for a very few exceptions (not including exercise, or walking the dog).

The Department for Transport says the regular Thursday teatime process will resume on 7 January. Looking at the number of new cases compared with those in the UK, the remainder of Greece should certainly be given travel corridor status; its infection rate is much lower than the UK. Assuming such a decision came into effect two days later (the usual timing), your journey back looks serendipitously planned.

France, Spain and Malta are also worthwhile contenders for removal from the “naughty list”. I hope this all happens. But UK quarantine decisions have rarely been decided on entirely logical grounds, so I wouldn’t hold your breath. I fear in current circumstances the government will want to be seen to be taking action by putting additional countries on the no-go list – possibly including, for the first time, Ireland.

Email your questions to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder