Travel news latest: Greece and Spain will remain 'amber' for summer, warns travel chief

Greece and Spain could be kept off the UK’s travel green list in what would be a huge disappointment for Britons still hoping for a summer holiday.

Analysis by former British Airways strategy chief Robert Boyle, which claims to have deciphered the algorithm used by the Government’s scientists to decide which countries are safe for travel, has identified 22 destinations as having better or similar figures in all the categories than places currently classed as green.

This includes France, Italy and Austria, which will be welcomed news among UK residents starved of overseas travel.

But Greece and Spain fail to make the cut, with much higher infection rates (31.4 and 93.6 per 100,000, respectively). In contrast, Italy has a seven-day rate of 8.4 – though all are dwarfed by the UK’s 215.6 cases per 100,000.

Giles Hawke, the chief executive of holiday operator Cosmos Tours, told The Telegraph: “Greece and Spain are massive destinations for British travellers and form a staple ingredient of our holidaying. Whether it be for beach, culture or touring they both feature heavily for our customers and ought to be on the green list.

“We have international travellers going to these destinations so it feels crazy that British people can’t. There appears to be no good reason to exclude them from the green list.”

Scroll down for the latest travel updates.

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10:00AM

Those who received jabs manufactured in India ‘should not be concerned’, says JCVI member

Professor Adam Finn, of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said people should not be concerned about receiving doses of AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India.

“The most important part of this is that people who have received these batches should be reassured that they have received exactly the same stuff as people who have received other batches made elsewhere,” he told the Today programme.

“This is an administrative hurdle that needs to be straightened out but people should not be concerned that they are in some way less well protected. We’re in the early days of this new world of needed vaccine passports and there are lots of aspects of this that are still being sorted out for the first time.

“But it’s clearly, ultimately not in anyone’s interest, including the European Union, to create hurdles that don’t need to be there.”

He added: “I would anticipate that this will get straightened out in due course.”

9:50AM

Ryaniar reports huge jump in passenger numbers

Budget airline Ryanair has carried 5.3 million passengers across 38,000 flights during June 2021 – a dramatic rise from its 400,000 travellers in June last year.

The operator has seen a steady increase in passengers throughout the year before numbers soared last month. April saw 1 million people fly with Ryanair, and 1.8 milion in May.

It comes a day after Jet2 restarted holidays to green-listed destinations.

9:42AM

What is the coronavirus situation Down Under?

9:35AM

Australia’s borders get even tighter

Australiahas announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who will be allowed to enter the country on Friday, as it struggles to contain coronavirus clusters that plunged major cities into lockdown.

With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by around 50 per cent to help prevent further outbreaks.

Under the current “zero Covid” strategy, just 6,000 people are allowed to enter Australia on overseas commercial flights each week and arrivals must undergo mandatory two weeks hotel quarantine.

That quota will be cut to around 3,000 by the middle of July, Mr Morrison indicated, although the government will at the same time step up its private repatriation flights.

9:26AM

European holidays could be off limits to millions of Britons given Indian-made AstraZeneca jab

Up to five million Britons face being locked out of European holidays because their vaccines are not recognised by the EU’s passport scheme, The Telegraph has learned.

Millions of vaccines administered here do not qualify for the European Union’s vaccine passport scheme, because the shots were manufactured in India and are not yet authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The hitch could leave thousands of Britons turned away at EU border crossings when the batch numbers on their vaccines are checked digitally.

The EU Digital Covid Certificate, which launched on Thursday, is designed to allow Covid-secure travel across the continent but does not recognise a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine called Covishield, produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), because it is yet to receive approval in Europe.

Up to five million doses of this version of the vaccine have been administered in the UK and are identifiable by the vaccine batch numbers (4120Z001, 4120Z002, 4120Z003) included on recipients’ vaccine cards and in the Covid travel pass available via the NHS app.

Read the full story here.

9:16AM

Travel ban for Britons on the agenda for Johnson and Merkel talks

Boris Johnson is set to challenge Angela Merkel over why she pushed for tougher restrictions on vaccinated British travellers when they hold talks at Chequers on Friday.

The Prime Minister and the German chancellor are expected to discuss travel rules during the pandemic when they meet at Mr Johnson’s official country residence.

Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, speaking during the G7 summit last month

Credit:
Leon Neal/Getty

Mrs Merkel recently called on the European Union to adopt a single policy of making Britons quarantine even when double-jabbed to protect against the Indian or delta variant of Covid.

But Mr Johnson declared on Thursday that getting two doses of a Covid vaccine would be the “liberator” for travel, repeating that rules for quarantining when arriving in the UK would be loosened later in the summer.

Read the full story from Ben Riley-Smith here.

9:07AM

Red to amber?

Among all the talk of what’s going green, spare a thought for countries that might make the jump from red to amber.

Could Turkey, Dubai or the Seychelles make the amber list in the next update? The next update is due on July 19.

My colleague, Greg Dickinson, takes a look at the ten most popular holiday destinations on the red list to assess which (if any) could move to the amber list this month.

Read about his findings here.

8:55AM

A snapshot of Covid across the world

8:52AM

France, Italy and Austria on track to join green travel list

More than 20 countries including France, Italy and Austria are on track to join the UK’s green list and open to British holidaymakers this month, data has revealed, reports Charles Hymas.

The 22 nations – primarily in Europe – all meet the threshold for inclusion on the quarantine-free green list, according to the analysis. All have infection rates below 20 cases per 100,000 of the population, fewer than 1.5 per cent of tests with a positive Covid result, high vaccination and testing rates and low prevalence of variants.

At present there are 27 destinations – largely islands – on the green list of which Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca, Malta and Madeira are the most popular holiday spots. Most of the rest are remote islands, many of which are closed to foreign travellers.

By analysing the data behind their inclusion, 22 more emerged as having better or similar figures in all the categories.

Read the full story here.