Thirty-nine flights are scheduled to leave Faro Airport in the Algarve for the UK on Monday, nearly double the usual total.
The last departure of the day is a Wizz Air flight due to land at Doncaster Sheffield Airport on Thursday at 2:05 am.
Travelers must arrive in the UK before 4 a.m. on Tuesday or they will have to self-isolate at home for 10 days.
This is due to the government’s controversial decision to remove Portugal from its green travel list.
Tourists wishing to exceed the deadline are hit by a combination of the many sold-out flights and the handful of available seats sold at inflated prices.
Ryanair charges £ 285 for a flight from Faro to Bournemouth on Monday, but only £ 17 on Wednesday.
EasyJet flights from Faro to Gatwick cost £ 227 on Mondays and £ 53 on Tuesdays.
A seat on British Airways’ last flight on Monday, from Faro to Heathrow, costs £ 349, although the airline allows people booked on flights from Portugal to the UK between Tuesday and Sunday to travel on Monday at no additional cost.
Tourists have also reported difficulties in obtaining the pre-departure tests required by the government for people arriving in the UK.
Many vacationers and travel agencies expressed their anger when the announcement about Portugal was made last Thursday, as it came just 17 days after the ban on international leisure travel was lifted.
Alan and Lisa Pechey, from Cambridge, who were on holiday in Lisbon, paid a total of £ 800 to get back to Gatwick on Monday, ahead of schedule.
Ms Pechey, 66, told the PA News Agency: “It was really expensive and I think the government was totally unfair to throw this out on us on Thursday because it really ruined our vacation, totally.
“We had flown on Monday for a relaxing break, but from Thursday we were under extreme stress.”
Ana Pacheco, 28, from Islington, north London, who was on vacation near Porto, paid £ 300 for her flight home.
She said: ‘I lost money on this trip, around £ 300 more because I was due back tomorrow night so it’s pretty boring.
“I think there should have been some extra time so we could get home – at least a week would have been better.”
The Transport Ministry said the situation in Portugal “required swift action to protect the gains made with the deployment of the vaccine”.
He said Portugal’s coronavirus test positivity rate had nearly doubled since travel lists were first created four weeks earlier.
The DfT added that 68 cases of the Indian mutation, also known as the Delta variant, have been identified in Portugal.
Separate figures from Test and Trace show that 200 arrivals from Portugal were tested between May 6 and May 19.
Three of those people have tested positive for the coronavirus.
– Report by the press association
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Source: www.thestar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-06-07 18:45:29
