LONDON / CALAIS, France (Reuters) – British travelers return home after a summer holiday in France on Friday, and book planes, trains, boats and even personal jets to return home before the 40 days take effect in reaction to the augmentation of the coronavirus. Infections in the country.
The government announced Thursday night that it would impose about 40 degrees from 03:00 GMT on Saturday on arrivals from France, giving 160,000 British tourists just over 24 hours to return home or face self-isolation upon returning.
The sudden replacement of regulations was an additional blow to hikers, airlines and tour operators. The pandemic has left many teams out of cash and struggling to survive.
Many British tourists headed to the French port of Calais in the hope of taking a ferry or to and from to get home on time.
“We replaced our plans when we heard the news last night. We stopped by the house a day early to miss the 40s,” said a British woman from a gas station on the Calais highway after her week in the south of France.
The queues of cars have been piling up in Calais until Friday afternoon. Ferry corporations were adding more crossings for more people to return home, Jean-Marc Puissesseau, head of the port of Calais, told Reuters.
PrivateFly, a UK-based aircraft supplier, said it had noticed 3 times the number of applications and reservations.
The new quarantine regulations apply to France, the most popular holiday destination of the moment for the British, such as the Netherlands and the Mediterranean island of Malta.
Spain, Britain’s favourite holiday destination, subject to BRITISH government quarantine regulations on July 26.
“We’ve also won a number of consumer requests that booked a vacation in those destinations in the coming weeks to modify their plans and avoid quarantine areas,” said Adam Twidell, Ceo of PrivateFly.
France has warned that it will return the favor, giving an additional blow to the airlines’ hopes of a resumption in August, as they would possibly have to cancel even more flights.
The airline and the stocks fell. IAG (ICAG. L, owner of British Airways, fell 6% and easyJet (EZJ. L), which said its entire program would work over the next few days, fell by 7%.
When Europe first entered the lockout in March, Britain criticized for not restricting arrivals from abroad. But since June, it has introduced strict quarantine regulations for arrivals from countries with infection rates above a safe level.
This contrasts with the other regulations at home, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered a re-enlancy of the economy to resume, weeks after it has stopped.
Transport minister Grant Shapps said the government needed to balance the need to open the economy and to contain the virus. The UK recorded 1,441 COVID-19 cases, the highest daily tally since June 14, official data showed on Friday.
Shapps told BBC Radio that he was sympathetic to travellers, but that they were not entirely surprised, given the fluid scenario around the pandemic.
“Where we see countries crossing a safe point of Array Instances … so we don’t have a selection to act yet,” he told Sky News.
Airlines UK, an industry framework representing BA, easyJet and Ryanair (RYA. (i) called on Britain to put in place more specific quarantines in regions with the highest infection rates and to establish a testing regime.
An EU study has shown that imported COVID instances account for only a small proportion of infections when a pandemic is at its peak, but they are more vital once a country has the disease under control.
Written through Sarah Young; Additional reports through Kate Holton; David Milliken and Richard Lough; Editing by Nick Macfie, Hugh Lawson and Frances Kerry
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