Travel news live: Restrictions could end within weeks, says Javid

A flurry of new testing and entry rules have been imposed by countries across the world as leaders prepare for the spread of new Covid-19 variant omicron.

The scattergun announcements made by ministers in destinations such as US, Italy, France and Ireland at different times have made them hard to follow, especially since new domestic restrictions have been announced in the UK.

If you’re feeling confused, read this round-up by The Independent’s travel expert Simon Calder, who has gathered all of the latest restrictions and testing requirements in one place.

The UK’s hotel quarantine policy is a “breach of human rights”, lawyers will tell the Royal Courts of Justice later today.

Group litigation firm PGMBM is seeking a judicial review over the recently reinstated policy, which sees people travelling to the UK from red list countries forced into a 10-day quarantine at a cost of £2,285 per solo traveller or £3,715 per couple.

Members of its legal team will argue that mandatory hotel quarantine of fully vaccinated people is unlawful and an interference with their right to personal liberty.

After the recent, sudden changes to the red list – when 11 African countries were added amid fears about the omicron variant – many British travellers had short windows of time to get back from countries such as South Africa and Nigeria before the expensive, mandatory isolation packages kicked in.

The inter-city coach operator, Megabus, will run twice as many services on 25 December this year as it did in 2020.

The firm will operating over 9,000 miles on Christmas Day, linking London, Bristol, Manchester, Cardiff, Reading, Leeds, Birmingham and Nottingham.

The company’s managing director, Mark Venables, said: “We’re determined to help bring as many people together as possible this festive season. Complying with all current government guidelines, we have over 13,000 seats available for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.”

On 25 and 26 December, Megabus will run services as frequently as every half hour between Heathrow Airport and London Victoria.

Leading travel industry figures have welcomed an apparent pledge by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, to end travel restrictions “very soon”.

Mr Javid told Parliament: “In the days and weeks that lie ahead, if, as I think is likely, we see many more infections and this variant becomes the dominant variant, there will be less need to have any kind of travel restrictions at all.”

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said: “Omicron will soon be the dominant variant in the UK and we know there are many cases now independent of international travel.

“The health secretary understands well that travel restrictions are utterly futile when we have community transmission and that’s why we’re pushing hard for these latest, emergency restrictions to be rolled back at the 20 December review.

“No other major economy has gone down the road of pre-departure and on-arrival tests – they are damaging our competitiveness and not providing any health advantage at all when the variant is this dominant within the UK.”

Nigel Wonnacott, head of external communications for Brittany Ferries, said: “Our hope is that the new variant proves less harmful than the dominant delta strain.

“If that is the case, and assuming community transmission is now inevitable, it would seem pointless to keep or even tighten international travel rules as we fear government may be planning.”

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has revealed the scale of collapse in passenger numbers in a summer of constantly changing travel restrictions.

The group also includes London Stansted and East Midlands airports.

Between April and September 2019, MAG handled 200,000 passengers per day.

In 2021, the numbers fell by 82 per cent to just 36,000 per day. The group lost £76m, compared with a profit of £173m in 2019.

In November traffic recovered to 58 per cent of pre-pandemic levels – the closest to pre-pandemic levels – but numbers have since fallen again.

After PCR tests and self-isolation were announced on 27 November passenger numbers fell by 10 to 20 per cent. The introduction of pre-departure tests this week led to a further slump.

Chief executive Charlie Cornish said: “The first half of this year tells a story of how travel restrictions held back the recovery of UK aviation, especially when compared to the rest of Europe.

“The reintroduction of costly and inconvenient travel testing requirements has created further uncertainty and delayed our recovery.

“These restrictions may have slowed the arrival of omicron but it is now transmitting in the community, and the government needs urgently to review whether the rapidly reducing benefit of testing justifies the damage it is causing to consumer confidence.”

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has said that the potential dominance of the omicron variant may lead to the end of travel restrictions in the coming weeks.

When asked about the imminent future of travel by MP Tahir Ali in Parliament yesterday, Mr Javid said that it was impossible to give a guarantee that there would not be any further restrictions in specific destinations.

But he added that a prediction that, “Very soon, in the days and weeks that lie ahead, if, as I think is likely, we see many more infections and this variant becomes the dominant variant, there will be less need to have any kind of travel restrictions at all.”

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s travel liveblog, where we’ll be following all the latest news and updates.