Britons in Portugal scrambling to get back to the UK to beat next week’s quarantine deadline risk paying hundreds of pounds more for previous flights.
Passengers arriving in Britain after 4 a.m. on Tuesday will need to self-isolate at home for 10 days after the government announced it was removing the southern European country from the green list and putting it on the orange list.
A seat on a Ryanair flight from the capital Lisbon to Manchester costs £ 339 on Monday, while the same journey costs just £ 75 on Wednesday.
Additionally, British Airways charges £ 348 for flights from Faro to Heathrow on Sundays and Mondays, but the price drops to £ 137 on Tuesday.
The UK’s largest tour operator Tui said it has 9,500 customers in Portugal, but that figure was already set to drop to 2,000 on Tuesday due to the end of the semester for schoolchildren.
The company allows consumers to change dates, but does not offer a refund because the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not recommend traveling to the country.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said positive COVID-19[female[feminine cases had doubled in the past three weeks in Portugal.
But Britons living and vacationing in the EU country and others planning to travel soon have spoken of their panic and devastation over the change in travel status.
Lauren Dunne
Ms Dunne was due to return from Portugal on Tuesday and had to change reservations for Sunday.
She told Sky News: “We panicked and booked a flight for tonight because we were so worried that it would come with immediate effect, and we cannot isolate ourselves. We managed to move our flights to Sunday but we are always losing money on the hotel.
“It just never should have happened. The infection rate here is the same as in the UK, …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-04 15:37:00
