All Covid restrictions on foreign travel, including passenger locator forms and tests for the unvaccinated, are to be scrapped in time for families planning to go abroad for the Easter holidays. The Telegraph has more.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, will announce on Monday that passenger locator forms will be scrapped from 4am this Friday.
Testing for unvaccinated passengers that are required to enter the U.K. will also be dropped, ending the final restrictions on travel.
It means that holidaymakers will be able to enjoy frictionless travel entering the U.K. for the first time since the start of the pandemic in spring 2020.
At present, only fully vaccinated arrivals can enter the U.K. without the need for tests. However, they must fill in a passenger locator form within 72 hours of travel, sharing their address, phone number, passport and flight details.
The forms were launched two years ago – when arrivals had to quarantine at home – to help check if travellers were following the rules. Mr. Shapps has been pushing to scrap them in time for Easter.
Unvaccinated U.K. arrivals currently have to take a rapid pre-departure test within 48 hours of travel and a costly PCR swab by day two.
Paul Charles, the Chief Executive of The PC Agency, a travel consultancy, said: “U.K. entry restrictions have been in place far longer than necessary. Now they are finally going, we’ll see confidence among consumers to book increase further. I now expect other countries to fall like dominoes in terms of their own border policies being removed.”
Let’s hope other countries follow suit quickly so travel can get back to normal without delay. Now if airlines can just be persuaded to drop their face mask requirements…
Worth reading in full.
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