‘5 MILLION’ Britons have ALREADY booked holidays to ‘amber list’ destinations

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The EU today took a step towards allowing fully vaccinated Britons to visit restriction-free this summer as it was revealed five million people have already booked as Boris Johnson’s muddled ministers still couldn’t decide if trips to ‘amber list’ destinations are banned.

Brussels has approved a plan that its 27 member states can adopt a vaccine passport system that will allow tourists to visit without needing to test or quarantine as the Prime Minister urged UK holidaymakers not to travel until he updates his own ‘green list’.

Ryanair today sought to cash in on the boom, offering £5 flights to ‘amber list’ destinations such as Barcelona, Dublin, Corfu, Berlin and dozens more cities and resorts across Europe through June, when the EU is expected to open up to tourists.

MailOnline can reveal that Tui, the UK’s biggest holiday company, has seen a surge in sales for ‘amber’ destinations in July and August.  Most customers are booking breaks at resorts in southern Spain, the Balearics and the Canaries or on Greek islands such as Crete, Kos, and Corfu.

Critics have pointed out that the UK’s traffic light system is also adding to the confusion, because an amber light can mean stop or go, with people left ‘baffled’ by the PM’s decision to legalise holidays from May 17 only to urge them to stay at home.

And Skills Minister Gillian Keegan has further fuelled travel chaos by stressing holidays to ‘amber list’ countries are not illegal and warnings from Boris Johnson are only ‘guidance’, insisting the government was trusting the public to be ‘sensible’. 

In a farrago of indecision, last night health minister Lord Bethell claimed travel anywhere abroad was ‘dangerous’ and foreign trips were ‘not for this year’, hours after Environment Secretary George Eustice suggested trips to ‘amber’ countries were acceptable if people wanted to see friends and family.

Virginia Messina, Senior Vice President of the World Travel & Tourism Council, told MailOnline: ‘Disagreements over whether or not you can travel to an “amber country” are baffling consumers and leaving the travel and tourism sector in disarray’. 

Millions of Britons have already taken advantage of cheaper prices and booked to travel abroad to ‘amber list’ destinations this summer, with the majority planning to head to Spain, France, Greece and Italy, according to The Independent, despite facing ten days of quarantine and multiple tests.

Many are gambling on the destinations turning ‘green’ by the time they are due to go.  

And it appears millions more have also taken advantage of flexible bookings offered by holiday companies to book a UK summer break at the same time, in case their foreign holiday is scuppered by covid.

With the EU set to open its borders to Brits, travel firms say that Boris Johnson will have to be clear on why he is insisting that people don’t go anywhere other than ‘green list’ Portugal in Europe.

Irene Hays, the boss of Hays Travel, said: ‘The British government will need to respond because the British people will know that, from Europe’s perspective, they’re allowed to travel there’,  adding inquiries about holidays in ‘amber list’ nations were up 177 per cent this week.  

As the Government was accused of dithering, it also emerged today:   

• Heathrow’s closed T3 and T4 and Gatwick’s shutdown South Terminal has forced ‘red list’ passengers and arrivals from safer nations to mix in ‘super-spreader’ bottlenecks at the borders 
• More than 100 direct flights from India have landed in the UK since the covid-ravaged Asian country was placed on the Government’s banned list of countries last month. This means that up to 8,000 travellers have flown in from the subcontinent despite concern over an Indian covid variant that threatens to undermine the easing of the national lockdown;
• Dirt cheap family holidays abroad on sale for just a few hundred pounds could end up costing travellers thousands because of huge extra fees for testing and quarantine;
• Border Force staff have said airlines should send employees to help reduce immigration queues after travellers faced three-hour waits to enter the UK – with red-list passengers unsegregated from others in the line at Heathrow; 

The traffic light policy for foreign holidays descended into farce last night with ministers accused of sowing ‘mass confusion’. On a chaotic day, George Eustice first suggested trips to ‘amber’ countries to see friends and family were acceptable. Yet hours later Boris Johnson over-ruled his Environment Secretary by insisting such travel was off limits.

Welsh Secretary Simon Hart further heightened the confusion last night by saying ‘some people might think a holiday is essential’ and they should use their ‘common sense’. 

That was followed by health minister Lord Bethell claiming holidays anywhere abroad were ‘dangerous’ with foreign trips ‘not for this year’.

The peer even failed to rebuff the idea that returning holidaymakers should be electronically tagged in quarantine.  

The contradictory messages left beleaguered travel chiefs begging for clarity. Hundreds of flights to amber countries have already left the UK and demand for foreign breaks has gone through the roof. Conservative MPs demanded an end to the shambles.

Lee and Louise Chambers, from Lancashire, have booked for Fuerteventura and Norfolk at the same time this summer.

The couple, with two children, believe flexible booking available, means they won’t be hit financially when they cancel one of them.

Mr Chambers said: ‘You start planning, you start preparing, and if that’s suddenly taken away it can actually impact our mental well-being,’ explains Lee. That’s why they are keeping the Norfolk booking and will decide nearer the time’.

Experts have said that late cancellations will hit UK businesses.  

Avvio, which provides the booking software for 500 UK hotels, fear a surge of cancellations later in the year because the rate is currently at 4% – when it is usually at 30%.

Chief commercial officer Michael De Jongh said:  ‘There’s a growing trend to book rooms at multiple hotels, with a view to cancelling all but one at the last minute. This causes so many problems for hotels, in the same way as multiple restaurant bookings did during Eat Out To Help Out.

‘If someone does have to cancel, I’d urge them to always give the hotel as much notice as possible or better still modify the booking to an alternative date’.

Air passengers arriving at London Heathrow Airport faced queues of up to three hours today as calls mounted to ensure arrivals from ‘red list’ countries such as India were separated from those coming in from other nations.

All arrivals are currently going into the same queues at the border, which has raised concerns over social distancing and people from amber or green list countries coming into contact with those from red list nations.

Downing Street has insisted that it is down to airports to make sure border queues happen in a Covid-secure way, and that the Government is ‘doing everything possible to make this process as efficient as possible’.

Asked whether amber and red arrivals should be separated at airports, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said today that ‘all arrivals should be managed in a way that is as Covid-secure as possible.’

Border officials have warned tourists face massive queues at airports as international travel expands, after the new the ‘traffic light’ system for foreign trips continued to lead to long queues for the second day in a row at Heathrow.

 Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said today that queues and delays at airports after the reopening of international travel could be a ‘super spreading risk’ if safety measures are not put in place. 

Speaking to the World At One programme on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon, the Labour MP said Border Force had ‘a long time to prepare’ for the reopening of foreign travel.

She said: ‘It’s irresponsible, frankly, not to sort this out because if you have people waiting for long periods of time in a not brilliantly ventilated arrivals hall, often standing very close to each other, well that’s a super spreading risk if you continue to do that and don’t have the proper systems in place, especially if you have people arriving from red list countries alongside people arriving from green list countries.

‘So they’ve got to make sure they have proper systems in place, that they have enough Border Force staff in place, that they have enough electronic systems in place, and if they don’t have those things in place at a time when we’re all desperately trying to keep the progress moving forwards, there’s a real risk that we’ll end up just going backwards again.

‘And this is against a long history of errors and mistakes in the policies at the border, those public health border policies, that have in previous waves made the pandemic significantly worse.’

Layla Moran MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus, added: ‘We cannot allow farcical scenes to continue in which those arriving from red list countries are mixing with others in overcrowded arrival halls, potentially allowing dangerous variants to spread.

‘The government must rethink its flawed approach and discourage overseas holidays while providing proper financial support to the travel industry.’

Today, one source at Heathrow watched passengers who walked into the Terminal 2 arrivals hall at the same time after landing on flights from New York and India, having spent three hours queuing for border checks.

They said: ‘When the India flights come out, they have a man or a woman in a high vis jacket leading them, and normally they’ll bring about half a dozen people through and they get escorted, at the front and at the back.

‘They then get taken to a separate lift which goes to the basement of Heathrow and then they mix with the public again as they get onto a coach to take them to the quarantine hotel.

‘As that happens, people who were on the New York flights are rushing past the people from the India flights. so you’re less than a metre away from people who are going to be quarantined. It just makes no sense whatsoever.’ 

One passenger stuck in a queue in Terminal 2 yesterday morning told MailOnline: ‘I arrived back in the country from South Africa – one of the Red Listed countries. I was more terrified catching Covid while going through border control than walking around South Africa.

‘While queuing there was no social distancing we had a plane from India arrive straight after ours and we queued for over three hours and when their plane arrived it was out the door.’

Heathrow sources said consideration was being given to opening another terminal but that it was currently ‘economically not viable’.

Opening another terminal would cost millions of pounds and airport officials have told the Government that ministers would need to help foot the bill.

Terminals 2 and 5 are open but 3 and 4 have been mothballed since last year in a bid to save money due to the economic hit inflicted by the pandemic.

Re-opening another terminal will only become economically viable when more countries are added to the travel ‘green list’, meaning passenger numbers will likely increase along with revenues generated within the terminal, or if ministers stump up more financial support.   

Border sources have predicted far longer waits to get back into Britain later this month – particularly when those who began holidays yesterday begin to return.

‘The flight numbers aren’t ramping up yet but when they do it will be unworkable at the border,’ one insider told the Daily Mail. ‘We are struggling as it is.

‘There’s been a significant increase in the amount of work that has to be done for each passenger at the border – and that takes time for every single arrive, UK national or not. I fear we will be unable to cope.’  

Border checks currently involve multiple stages in addition to the usual eligibility and anti-terror screenings that are carried out by immigration officers.

Covid rules mean officers must determine whether a passenger has arrived from a green, amber or red list country, examine their ‘passenger locator form’, and that they have a valid negative Covid test certificate, as well as bookings for tests on the 2nd and 8th days after arriving.

Arrivals from red list countries must also show proof of their mandatory hotel quarantine bookings.

Steve Myall, who returned with his wife and young family from New York to Heathrow yesterday, said: ‘The border arrivals hall had people from flights from all over the place with no social distancing – red list people next to amber list. 

‘Bearing in mind kids can’t get vaccinated you would have thought they would move families through quicker.

‘I don’t see why it’s such chaos. If variants are the concern then throw money at the border or maybe a plan to make it hellish to put people off travel.’

He added: ‘I suspect it’s going to be chaos once the airport is taking UK nationals back when they’ve been away.’  

Heathrow Airport chief John Holland-Kaye insisted things had got better at the border since queues of up to seven hours last month. He said queues were now often much shorter partly due to guard numbers being boosted.

‘When I was in immigration the other day, there were no queues, we had enough desks opened and half of the e-gates in Terminal 5 were open,’ he said.

‘What I heard from the head of Border Force [Paul Lincoln] is that now that upgrade has happened all would be open unless they were taken out for upgrades.

‘So effectively most passengers who previously used e-gates will be able to use e-gates again.’ He added: ‘We have raised our concerns about what we’ve seen at the border over the last few months where there have been far longer queues than are necessary. 

‘However, by raising it as a public issue we have seen the Home Office and Border Force respond, they’ve accelerated the automation process [by opening up e-gates] which we have been calling for.

‘They put more officers on the desks and started to change their processes, and that is converting into shorter queues at the border.

‘I’m glad to see that Border Force seems to be stepping up.’ Asked if measures at the border were ‘fit for purpose’ yet, British Airways chief Sean Doyle said he was ‘encouraged’ by some of the progress made. 

But he added: ‘I think it needs to improve as we get into the summer. And I think there needs to be a commitment from all parties to make it improve. That’s going to be very important.

‘We have a lot of work to do. But we’re progressing along the right direction which is to use automation, which is to reopen the e-gates and to work as both airlines, airports and with Border Force together to get this up and running.’ 

TERMINAL crisis! Decision to close Heathrow’s T3 and T4 and Gatwick’s South Terminal has forced ‘red list’ passengers and arrivals from safer nations to mix in ‘super-spreader’ bottleneck at the borders

Passengers flying into Heathrow from high risk countries are being forced to mingle with travellers from safer destinations as concerns mount that UK airports are turning into ‘super spreaders’. 

Travellers are being crammed into queues with no social distancing from other passengers and have called the situation ‘mad’ and ’embarrassing’ amid fears covid documents are not being checked properly.  

Heathrow mothballed Terminals 3 and 4 last year in a bid to save money due to the economic hit inflicted during the pandemic, meaning all arrivals are currently piling into the same lines at 2 and 5.  

Insiders have said consideration was being given to opening another terminal, but that it was ‘economically not viable’ and that the Government will have to help foot the multi-million-pound bill. 

The decision has led to chaos, with red, amber and green list passengers all mixing with each other as border insiders say they are ‘struggling’ to cope and warn the crisis will only get worse as the number of flights increase.

A blame game has now ensued, in which Heathrow has blamed Border Force for the mixing of passengers, while Downing Street and the Home Office said airports are responsible for managing queues in a covid-secure way.   

The Government is coming under pressure from Labour to toughen up the UK border after it emerged that more than 100 direct flights from India have landed in Britain since the covid-ravaged Asian nation was placed on the banned list of travel destinations three and a half weeks ago. 

Downing Street was accused of sowing even further confusion today after education minister Gillian Keegan told travellers not to fly to amber list Spain – but admitted that flying to Europe was not illegal.   

The contradictory messages left beleaguered travel chiefs begging for clarity, with hundreds of flights to amber countries having already left the UK and demand for foreign breaks shooting through the roof.     

As the Government was accused of dithering and a farrago of indecision, it also emerged: 

• Spanish and Greek tourism chiefs called for their island regions to be treated separately to the mainland;
• The Army will seek to discipline soldiers who refuse to have a coronavirus jab;
• Virus deaths hit their lowest level in more than eight months, with twice as many people now dying from flu;
• The figures raised hopes that Boris Johnson could soon declare that lockdown curbs will end in June;
• However the number of areas detecting the Indian variant has surged 44 per cent in a week;
• Job vacancies hit their highest level since the start of the pandemic;
• Dominic Cummings launched a fresh attack on the Government’s handling of the pandemic;
• A nurse singled out by Mr Johnson for saving his life from covid has quit over the Government’s ‘lack of respect’ for the profession.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: ‘Border Force is responsible for separating red list passengers in their immigration halls and automating passenger checks to reduce queue times.

‘The process the Government has designed for red list passengers, triages passengers at Heathrow between aircraft gate and the immigration hall. Those from the red list are directed into a dedicated channel.

‘After crossing the border, Government contractors then escort red list passengers to a segregated area of our baggage hall to collect their luggage before taking them to dedicated hotel quarantine transportation.

‘There are numerous measures to keep passengers and colleagues safe, including requirements for negative tests pre-departure for international arrivals, enhanced cleaning regimes, dedicated covid marshals to enforce social distancing and mandatory use of face coverings throughout the airport.’ 

Ministers are being accused of sowing ‘mass confusion’ over global travel as the Government’s traffic light policy descended into farce – with Environment Secretary George Eustice suggesting trips to amber countries to see friends and family were acceptable, before being overruled by Boris Johnson just hours later.

The Prime Minister yesterday insisted such travel was off limits, as health minister Lord Bethell claimed holidays anywhere abroad were ‘dangerous’ and foreign trips ‘not for this year’. Astonishingly, the peer even failed to rebuff the ‘idiotic’ idea that returning holidaymakers should be electronically tagged in quarantine.   

Education minister Gillian Keegan today heightened the confusion by saying that travel to amber list countries was ‘not for pleasure at the moment’ but admitting that travel to those destinations is not illegal. 

‘Amber list countries are there for a reason – they are there so that you can travel for business, you can travel for particular situations such as funerals or if there are some specific care issues in your family,’ she told Times Radio. ‘But holiday where you have a choice, we are advising you to go to the green list countries, and of course, there’s only 12 of those so most people, we anticipate, will stay at home.’

When asked if people thinking of travelling to Spain were ‘doing the wrong thing’, she replied: ‘I have a house in Spain, I lived in Spain for eight years, I’m desperate to go to Spain. But right now, it’s not the time to go to Spain.’ She then admitted the Government has not legislated to ban people from going on holiday abroad.  

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Ms Keegan said: ‘What we are saying is the amber list is not to go on holiday, not for pleasure travel at the moment. It’s not in legislation, we haven’t legislated to ban people from going on holiday abroad. 

‘This is guidance. As with many of these things we have had throughout the pandemic this has been about relying on the great British public to be sensible and follow the guidance we have put in place and taking their own decisions really. But, no, we wouldn’t advise going on holiday to the amber list countries.’ 

However, she suggested the green list of countries where people can take overseas holidays may be expanded next month.

Ms Keegan said there would probably be an announcement ‘a week or two before’ the next stage of the lifting of lockdown restrictions.

‘As we get to the next stage of the unlocking – June 21 – I think people are hoping there are more countries on the green list but right now there are only 12 on the green list and they are the only ones you can go on holiday to,’ she told LBC radio.

Scenes of arrivals from red list and amber list countries all queueing together at Heathrow have sparked calls for a toughening of the UK border – with Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth calling it as secure as a ‘sieve’ during the pandemic. 

He told Sky News: ‘Our shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has long been calling on your programme and other programmes that we need a comprehensive border policy.

‘Our borders have been about as secure as a sieve throughout this crisis and it’s why we are seeing these variants bounce at us. There’s probably going to be more of this as well, so we have got to work internationally to bring infection rates down and make sure the world is vaccinated. But we have also got to have secure borders and controls as well.’

Mr Ashworth added he would not travel to a country on the Government’s amber list. Speaking to Sky News, he said the Government’s messaging around international travel had been ‘confusing’.

He said: ‘I think people just want clarity. Because people want to do the right thing and there are people who will just want a holiday.’

Asked if he would go to a country on the amber list, he said: ‘No, no I wouldn’t. At the moment I’m planning on going on holiday to Devon or Cornwall or somewhere, if I do get a holiday.’