36 hours to get home from Greek islands to beat quarantine deadline
Anyone returning from Crete, Lesvos, Mykonos, Santorini, Serifos, Tinos and Zakynthos after 4am on Wednesday must self-isolate for two weeks
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Your support makes all the difference.Thousands of British holidaymakers on seven Greek islands face a stark choice between a dash home before 4am on Wednesday or 14 days in self-isolation, after an unexpected government U-turn on its quarantine policy.
Grant Shapps announced that travellers arriving from Crete, Lesvos, Mykonos, Santorini, Serifos, Tinos and Zakynthos (also known as Zante) after the deadline will be required to go straight home and self-isolate for two weeks
The move is in response to spikes in infection rates on those islands.
The transport secretary said: “Our top priority has always been to keep domestic infection rates down, and today we’re taking the next step in our approach.
“This development will help boost the UK’s travel industry while continuing to maintain maximum protection to public health, keeping the travelling public safe.”
It is not sufficient for holidaymakers simply to leave the island – they must be back in the UK by the deadline.
With few direct services from Greek islands to the UK, many travellers will attempt to return home via the capital, Athens.
British Airways has four flights from the Greek capital on Tuesday to London Heathrow. Within minutes of the transport secretary’s announcement, the lowest one-way fare on the mid-afternoon service had risen by two-thirds to €456 (£407).
The move is the first softening of the UK government’s previous hard line: that a country must be either high risk or low risk.
The all-or-nothing policy has placed some Spanish islands with low infection rates effectively off-limits to British travellers.
The travel industry has given a guarded welcome to the prospect that islands will be considered for quarantine-exempt “air corridors” – even if the mainland is deemed high risk.
Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Manchester Airports Group – which also includes Stansted and East Midlands – said: “It is good that Grant Shapps is responding to the concerns of the aviation industry, and committing Government to look at how testing can be used to reduce the time people need to spend in quarantine.
“Adopting a regionalised approach to travel corridors is also welcome news and long overdue. Even though it will initially mean restrictions on travel to some Greek islands, it should enable key markets like the Balearics and Canaries to open up again more quickly.
“With hundreds of thousands of travel sector jobs at stake and the summer holiday season already behind us, progress must be made on this as a matter of urgency.”
The Welsh government applies quarantine to Antiparos and Paros, but not to Santorini, Serifos or Tinos.
Conversely, Welsh residents returning from mainland Portugal are required to quarantine while those from Madeira and the Azores are not.
Scotland currently insists on quarantine for all arrivals from Greece.
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