Holidays to Greek Islands back on as five destinations added to corridor list

Five Greek islands have been added to the UK's travel corridor list, meaning arrivals from the UK won't have to quarantine.

Britons returning from five Greek islands will no longer have to quarantine for 14-days.

Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Santorini and Zakynthos are being added to the travel corridor list, giving British holidaymakers a few more options that don’t require self-isolating on return.

It follows a drop in new coronavirus infections on these islands, and will come into effect at 4am on Saturday.

No countries have been removed from the ‘safe’ list this week, which has dramatically dwindled since the Government introduced the travel corridor policy in July.

Last week Britons scrambled to get home from Turkey and Poland after they were removed from the quarantine-exemption list. The Caribbean islands of Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba were also placed on the list that requires travellers to quarantine upon return.

Other destinations already on the quarantine list include Spain, France, the US, Denmark, Iceland, Slovakia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Jamaica.

On Wednesday the Department for Transport (DfT) said it had established a taskforce to reduce the 14-day self-isolation period for people arriving to the UK from middle to high-risk countries.

One option being considered is travellers being released from quarantine after paying a private sector firm for a single Covid-19 test following a period of self-isolation.

It is not clear how long passengers would have to self-isolate before taking the test, though travel bosses have said five days ‘should be the starting point’.

The Government said current rules around the 14-day self-isolation policy will remain in place while the taskforce considers:

• How a testing regime for international arrivals could be implemented to boost safe travel to and from the UK
• What steps can be taken to facilitate business and tourist travel through innovative testing models and other non-testing means
• More broadly, what steps can be taken to increase consumer confidence to support the recovery of international travel

Aviation bosses have repeatedly called for testing at airports to replace the quarantine policy, which has hampered the travel sector’s recovery.

The chief executives of Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airports Group, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic welcomed the news as a ‘step in the right direction’.

However, airline body IATA said the proposals do not go far enough, citing data that 80% of travellers said they would not fly at all if any quarantine was in place.

‘The proposals on the table do not go as far as we had hoped,’ the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. ‘A reduction in the length of quarantine is the very minimum needed to restart travel demand.’

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