Quarantine: mainland Portugal set to return to no-go list, Grant Shapps implies

Transport secretary hints that some Spanish islands many see quarantine requirement lifted

Mainland Portugal looks set to return to the UK’s no-go list, triggering a scramble for seats on flights from Faro, Lisbon and Porto ahead of the likely 4am Saturday deadline.

British Airways has one seat left at €337 (£301) on its Friday evening flight from Faro to Heathrow, while easyJet’s Friday departures from the Algarve airport to Gatwick are all sold out.

Portugal has seen a surge in coronavirus infection numbers in the Lisbon and Porto regions since the British quarantine requirement was lifted on 22 August.

The transport secretary will make an announcement later today on the changes to the quarantine regime and the Foreign Office travel advice.

Wales already imposes self-isolation on mainland Portugal, while Scotland also includes the Portuguese islands of Madeira and the Azores in its quarantine rule, introduced a week ago.

England and Northern Ireland have not yet re-imposed quarantine on Portugal.

Speaking on Sky News, Grant Shapps said: “We’ll wait for the latest scientific evidence from the Joint Biosecurity Centre.”

But in the same answer, the transport secretary implied a decision has already been made to place mainland Portugal on the no-go list.

“We do now have the ability to analyse island data in much more detail," he said.

“So we've been able to, with Greece for example, not to exclude the whole of Greece, but remove seven islands.

“We will be able to look at islands in other places, notably the Portuguese and Spanish islands.”

The implication appears to be that Madeira and the Azores, which have seen few cases of coronavirus, will be exempt from what now appears to be the inevitable re-imposition Portuguese travel ban.

Mr Shapps also offered hope that one or more of the Spanish islands may have their no-go status lifted.

Spain was among the countries that had quarantine lifted on 10 July, but it was re-imposed 16 days later. At the time, the UK’s travel industry called for the Balearics and Canary Islands – which have had far lower infection rates than parts of mainland Spain – to be exempt.

“Whether their data justifies that at the moment is something I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until later today when we have completed our discussions with the joint biosecurity,” Mr Shapps said.

As Mr Shapps was speaking, British Airways’ parent company, IAG, said forward sales have fallen “following the re-implementation of quarantine requirements by the UK and other European governments for travellers returning from specific countries including Spain”.

The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has called for “an urgent rescue plan for UK aviation, in the face of an imminent unemployment catastrophe”.

Alexandre de Juniac, the director general, said: “The stop-start-stop closing of the UK to the world is not a successful survival tactic for Covid-19.

"Without a rescue plan, 820,000 jobs will be vaporised by quarantine and they may never come back.

“The answer is a Covid-19 testing regime that manages the risk to keep people safe from the virus.

"And it will avoid apocalyptic unemployment that is sure to devastate society and the economy.”