British passengers on flight to Germany told they would have to stay on camp beds at airport

Travel bans for UK arrivals issued across Europe

Eurowings Airbus (PA)

Passengers from the UK on a flight to Stuttgart, Germany, were told they would have to stay on camp beds at the airport when they arrived.  

Those flying on the Eurowings service from London Heathrow on Sunday were told initially by the pilot that, due to a change in travel restrictions, travellers without a German passport would have to take a Covid-19 test upon landing and go straight to a designated hotel to quarantine until they received their result.

However, after receiving updated information, the pilot announced that “passengers without a German passport need to be aware that there are no more hotel rooms available, all hotels reached maximum occupancy in Stuttgart,“ according to audio obtained by German publication BILD.

”German citizens continue to be able to enter the country without any limitations,“ he added, reports Business Insider.

But t travellers were informed that non-German arrivals would have to stay at a ”designated, separated area in the airport with camp beds“ until they received their test results back. It was unclear what would happen to those who tested positive for the virus.

A Stuttgart Airport spokesperson told The Independent  that passengers did not end up having to stay the night on camp beds.

He said: “After the arrival of the last flight from LHR at 9.45pm yesterday, all passengers were guided to the airport test centre in small groups. After approximately two hours, the testing procedure for all passengers had been completed and all of them had been allowed to leave the airport. As far as we know, the authorities didn´t register any positive testing results.”

The Independent has contacted Eurowings for further comment.  

It follows a raft of countries, including Germany, issuing temporary UK travel bans after a new highly contagious strain of coronavirus was detected in the country.

Some destinations have stopped all travel to and from the UK for a set amount of times, while others have closed their borders indefinitely.

Germany has initially banned all passenger flight to and from the UK from 11pm on Sunday 20 December until 11pm on Thursday 31 December.

Meanwhile, a 48 hour border closure with France caused chaos around ports and the Channel Tunnel, resulting in queues of freight trucks and severely disrupted supply chains.

See the full list of countries that have issued travel bans here.