Airlines bosses have reacted with anger to the decision by the UK government to remove Portugal from the green list of countries that can be visited without quarantine.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair PLC’s (LON:RYA) chief executive, said the move wasn’t based on any science or public health.
“What we don't understand is why the UK, which has been so successful with vaccines, is expecting its vaccinated citizens travelling to Portugal coming back to quarantine," he told the BBC.
Johan Lundgren, easyJet PLC’s (LON:EZJ) chief executive added that while its fleet in Europe was gearing up for summer travel the UK remains grounded as the government is making it impossible to plan ahead.
Politicians in Portugal also expressed disappointment and said they did not understand the logic behind the decision with the infection rate there officially only marginally higher than in the UK.
The country is now amber-rated on the government’s traffic light system, which means only essential travel is allowed and anyone coming back to the UK from visiting has to self-isolate for ten days and take Covid-19 tests on days two and eight.
The new rules, which also saw Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago added to the red list, come into force on 8 June.
Tour operator Tui Ag (LON:TUI) said half of the passengers who had booked to fly to Portugal this year are going ahead with their trips and it was not scheduling extra flights to bring holidaymakers home ahead of Tuesday.
The travel firm currently has about 8,000 UK visitors in Portugal, though this will drop to 2,000 at the end of this week when the UK half-term school holiday ends.
Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary, said the government had been concerned about a new strain of Covid-19 known as the Nepal variant in making its decision about Portugal.
“We don’t know yet whether it is going to be a problem, but our scientists are doing research as we speak, they are looking at whether it is more transmissible, whether it is more virulent, and above all whether or not our current set of vaccines are effective against it."
O’Leary said that Ryanair passengers booked for Portugal would be able to rebook flights for later in the summer and it was still intending to operate extra flights to the country to meet the demand.
Shares in Ryanair dropped 1.2% to €16.19 while easyJet slipped 1.7% to 943p though TUI rose slightly to 422p.
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