Sun-Hungry Brits Head South as Flights Resume Post-Covid Ban

(Bloomberg) -- For almost a year, Josh Scullion has been chasing the sunshine.

The 32-year-old bank worker from Teesside, England, originally booked a package holiday to Mexico in July 2020 with his fiancee and their newborn daughter.

That trip was canceled by tour operator TUI AG due to a coronavirus flare-up at the destination. A rescheduled Christmas break in the Canary Islands with extended family was nixed by U.K. lockdowns prompted by a fast-spreading mutation of the disease.

In February, Scullion gambled on a new plan. His flight scheduled for Thursday to Portugal’s coastal Algarve region turned out to be perfectly timed for the lifting of the U.K.’s months-long ban on leisure travel. Barring an unforeseen twist, his family will be among the first Brits to break free for warmer climes after being penned up all winter.

“It was definitely worth the added stress,” Scullion said. “We have to learn to try to get back to normal. Once I’ve done this once, I’ll have the confidence to travel again.”

Distant Dreams

After a year of false starts, rogue virus strains and vaccine drama, Brits are finally able to travel again, if only to a handful of “green list” destinations, without having to quarantine on return. Airlines, hotels and restaurants are hopeful, as are sun-starved travelers. Yet there’s no guarantee a fresh virus strain, like the one that’s wreaked havoc in India, won’t disrupt the U.K.’s reopening plans yet again.

The U.K.’s success in bringing down infection rates, combined with progress that’s led European sun-spots like Portugal and Italy to also ease border rules, has brought hope to an airline industry that’s suffered repeated setbacks in the past 15 months.

“I see a step approach in which airlines feed routes into relatively safe countries,” said Peter Morris, chief economist at flight tracker Cirium. The U.K.’s wet weather is “a very strong push factor” for demand and some routes might fill up quite rapidly.

Limited Choices

The highly transmissible Indian mutation could yet thwart the U.K. comeback. The government has warned it could lead to a major surge in cases, and is accelerating its vaccine rollout to people as young as 35 in an attempt to contain it.

In a Bloomberg TV interview, Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said he’s confident vaccines are effective against it. Yet should the threat rise, there’s a risk of new lockdowns that could put Europe’s reopening into reverse, his finance chief, Neil Sorahan, said separately.

The government has moved with caution, placing just 12 countries and territories on its green list. There are strict entry requirements even for many of those counterparts, and the U.K.’s stipulation that all returning passengers must take coronavirus tests will drive up the cost of a getaway.

Portugal, the only major holiday zone on the list, will be the main focus for Brits, with Ryanair and EasyJet Plc alone adding more than 300,000 seats there since the U.K.’s May 7 announcement.

More than 15 U.K. airports -- including Manchester, where Scullion has booked -- are braced for a rush of passengers to hubs in Lisbon, Porto and Faro in the southern Algarve region, as well as the sub-tropical Portuguese island of Madeira.

“We’ve been desperate to get away,” said Luke Saunders, who along with four friends is flying EasyJet to Albufeira on the Algarve’s Atlantic coast on June 5. “We waited for the green list to make the decision.”

Saunders, 25, will depart from London Gatwick, which is planning to handle 6,000 passengers on Monday and 40,000 for the entire week. While business has almost tripled from last week, it’s less than 5% of normal traffic. Daily volumes will rise to 20,000 by month’s end, Gatwick CEO Stuart Wingate told Bloomberg TV.

London Heathrow is expecting 13,000 departing passengers on Monday. That’s a 63% bump from a week earlier but still leaves Europe’s busiest airport pre-pandemic down almost 90% from normal traffic levels.

Shut Out

There won’t be much change to some green-listed countries like Australia or New Zealand, because entry to those countries is barred for most people, said Heathrow spokesman Weston Macklem. Return without quarantine is also permitted to Gibraltar, Iceland, Israel and Singapore.

There’s also been progress for a broader reopening of travel in the region. Italy on Friday said it would allow arrivals from the European Union, the U.K. and Israel without quarantine if they’ve had a negative Covid-19 test. But travelers from Britain are likely to be left out until Italy joins its green list.

Ryanair said it expects Italy and Greece to be added this month, with Spain to follow in June.

With the data available today, much of Europe could go on the green list,” EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said.

Carriers will have most of the responsibility to check border forms on outgoing passengers and help customers navigate a maze of rules, risks and procedures. They’ve enhanced cleaning measures, sent countless emails to update travelers, worked out discount testing deals and rolled out apps to ease journeys.

At Gatwick, extra staff will be added to help ensure social-distancing, while seating is being made available for those unable to stand for long periods. The airport says it’s confident it can handle arrivals from a handful of amber-listed countries without reworking its processes.

Some Border Force kiosks at Heathrow must be left empty for social distancing, according to Lucy Moreton from the Immigration Services Union. The agency has already warned of long lines. The airport may open one of its mothballed terminals to process people flying in from red-listed countries.

Soft Launch

The incremental pace gives the carriers, airports and agencies time to work out snags before volumes mushroom, and weigh progress against the India variant.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that the government could put the brakes on its relaxation of lockdown rules, covering everything from travel to restaurants and cinemas. Germany on Friday reinstated the U.K. as a coronavirus risk area, less than one month after taking it off the list.

Travel demand is likely to pick up later in summer, as consumers grow more confident and vaccination rates rise, said Cirium’s Morris. For now, many may opt to wait before committing to a booking.

“It’s not that the government has announced that 12 places are OK, it’s that next week there might be six, might be 14,” Morris said. “Consumers react to that kind of uncertainty by saying, I’ll just hold off.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.