NEWS


A crowded arrivals hall


at Heathrow last Friday


Industry resigned to quarantine hotels but ‘needs pathway out’


Ian Taylor


The government was poised to announce mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals as Travel Weekly went to press on Tuesday and the UK Covid death toll passed 100,000. But the requirement was set to be


restricted to UK nationals arriving from ‘high-risk’ destinations, where direct flights are already banned, and not a blanket rule as many media reports suggested – meaning it would apply to southern Africa, South America and Portugal owing to the volume of traffic from Brazil. An announcement was


against reinfection from abroad.” Arrivals will be directed to a hotel


and confined for 10 days, then have to pay the bill. An aviation source told Travel


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Weekly: “We’re not sure how this will work. We expect Border Force to organise it, but there is a big question around enforcement.” An airline source added: “It’s an extreme measure, but if restricted to countries with travel bans in place it can work. It doesn’t


seem scalable. Do we have the hotel capacity to extend


something like this?” An obvious limitation is the


expected following a meeting of the government’s coronavirus operations committee on Tuesday evening. But prime minister Boris Johnson confirmed: “Looking at hotels is one thing [we’re working on]. We need the maximum possible protection


travelweekly.co.uk


number of hotel beds sufficiently near to Heathrow to make the system work. But the source added: “We have to know the pathway out of this.” The aviation source agreed:


“There has to be a clear pathway out, but it’s unclear what that pathway looks like and whether the


It’s an extreme


measure, but if restricted to countries with travel bans in place it can work


government will provide one. They keep layering on restrictions and we get very little response to calls for a pathway out. The government bandwidth for thinking about this does not seem to be there.” A senior leisure industry source


warned: “The government has taken all the pain it’s going to get over lockdown and the public is probably behind them. People are saying ‘Why isn’t the industry screaming about this?’ But the industry would be flying in the face of its customers.” A YouGov poll found 87% of UK


adults in favour of making travellers quarantine in hotels for 10 days on


arrival. Almost two in three (64%) backed a ban on international flights. Home secretary Priti Patel


declined to comment in advance of the announcement, but told MPs on Tuesday: “Policy is being developed.” Asked how long the new measures


might be in place, she said: “We keep all measures under review. We’ve seen escalation and de-escalation. Now we see an escalation, but these measures will be kept under review.” Patel confirmed “crowded scenes”


at Heathrow at the weekend were due to “the checks Border Force put in place” to ensure all arrivals have pre-departure Covid test results and said: “Border Force is now checking 100% of arrivals.” The aviation source said: “People


are waiting three hours at Heathrow. You only need 100 people to have a 200-metre queue with social distancing. Border Force is not sufficiently staffing this. But it’s not a problem at any other airport.”


28 JANUARY 2021 5


PICTURE: Peter Westmacott via Twitter


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