Ryanair: UK quarantine for travellers “ineffective and useless”

The UK government’s new visitor quarantine rules have been branded “ineffective and useless” by Ryanair.

The budget airline has said imposing a two-week isolation on passengers arriving in the country is not only a “total waste of time” but also a case of “closing the door long after the horse has bolted”.

From 8 June, new rules will require travellers to the UK, both residents and visitors, to provide journey and contact details and then stay in one place for 14 days after arrival.

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Anyone breaching the requirements could be fined up to £1,000 or face further action.

Budget airline Ryanair, which plans to resume around 40 per cent of scheduled flights from the start of next month, has branded the UK government's 14-day coronavirus quarantine for arrivals to the country "ineffective and useless"Budget airline Ryanair, which plans to resume around 40 per cent of scheduled flights from the start of next month, has branded the UK government's 14-day coronavirus quarantine for arrivals to the country "ineffective and useless"
Budget airline Ryanair, which plans to resume around 40 per cent of scheduled flights from the start of next month, has branded the UK government's 14-day coronavirus quarantine for arrivals to the country "ineffective and useless"

But a spokesperson for Ryanair said: “This 14-day UK quarantine is ineffective, completely useless and will have no effect on British passengers, who will largely ignore it.

“At a time when the medical science across Europe, in countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany, have safely removed all inbound visitor restrictions, the imposition of this completely defective quarantine in the UK is utterly useless and a total waste of time.”

Since Covid-19 flight restrictions were implemented in mid-March, Ryanair has been operating a skeleton daily schedule of 30 flights between Ireland, the UK and Europe.

Now the Irish-based company - which serves 18 UK airports, including Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland – is set to resume operations from most of its 80 bases across Europe from the beginning of next month.

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It has set out plans to restore around 40 per cent of all scheduled flights.

The announcement comes on the back of a relaxing of coronavirus travel restrictions elsewhere.

The spokesperson added: “Ryanair is going back flying on 1 July with 1,000 daily flights from most UK airports, and we look forward to welcoming thousands of UK visitors going on their well-earned summer holidays to Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, and we are equally confident that inbound visitors to the UK will not be deterred by this completely ineffective and useless quarantine measure, which both Priti Patel and Grant Shapps know cannot be implemented, cannot be policed and has no scientific basis supporting it whatsoever.”

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