‘Heartbreaking to watch’: Britons scramble back from Portugal amid amber list deadline

Portugal is now on the amber list

Homeward bound: British holidaymakers queuing at Faro airport in Portugal to get out before the quarantine deadline (Victoria Richards)

British travellers from Portugal let out a collective sigh of relief when they landed back in the UK before the amber list deadline came into effect early on Tuesday morning.

Images from Gatwick airport showed jubilant passengers landing before the self-isolation deadline, which came into effect at 4am, following signs of chaos in airports in the holiday country.

Downing Street said it was “a difficult decision to make” to move Portugal off the green list of travel restrictions but the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “We always need to act decisively and swiftly should the data show that risk in a particular country has changed, and that's why it was right to act in the circumstances.”

Downing Street did not rule out the prime minister taking a foreign holiday this summer.

Katy Daly, a 40-year-old teacher from Essex, was originally due to fly back on Tuesday from Faro, following a week’s holiday in the holiday hotspot the Algarve.

She changed her flight to come back a day earlier, landing at just before 11pm on Monday night into London Heathrow, five hours before the amber deadline.

“We were actually really lucky and got to the BA check in before it got really mental,” she tells The Independent. “We were delayed slightly as a result of how mad it got after we’d gone through.”

Ms Daly said British Airways, which offered Portugal customers free flight changes, was “amazing”. She flew back with a friend on a wide-body jet rather than the traditional narrow-body plane, as the airline ploughed more capacity onto Portuguese routes to bring back passengers.

Others weren’t so lucky.

Colette and Graham, from London, were due to fly back to London from Lisbon after a week’s holiday on Sunday, but were refused boarding when they realised they didn’t have a negative lateral flow test.

They arrived at Lisbon airport to find two desks operating, and every passenger’s details checked manually, which took “so much time”.

“One by one people were stepping aside as they hadn’t done passenger locator form, or they were booking PCR tests to do at home,” Colette tells The Independent. “People were leaving the queue upset and hysterical without the negative test you must do as well.”

She says the couple then raced to get an express PCR test before booking a new flight, which were “disappearing each time you selected it as they were being booked so rapidly”.

“There were no signs, no information, the two staff were so good but completely overwhelmed,” she says.

They are now on a flight home from Portugal after organising tests, and will be required to self-isolate at home for 10 days and take two-post arrival PCR tests.

The Atlantic nation, initially on the “safe” list of destinations, now sits on the UK’s amber list. Arrivals from amber countries have to self-isolate for 10 days and take two post-arrival PCR tests.

This morning, environment secretary George Eustice insisted people should not travel abroad unless “absolutely necessary” and advised people to “holiday at home” this summer.

Mr Eustice, who said he would be holidaying in Cornwall this summer, stressed that travellers must be aware of the “risks” in deciding to travel abroad in the near future.

The next traffic light reshuffle is due on 24 June, according to the government’s three-week timetable.