The travel industry is finally able to look forward to a boost in bookings after a long time in the wilderness after the foreign office ruled out all but essential travel to Spain
The Canary Islands joins The Maldives, Denmark and Mykonos on government’s travel corridor list This means travellers returning to the UK from 4 am on Sunday will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days.
The Canary Islands represent many of the most popular holiday destinations including Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and comes just in time for the October half term.
TUI, the UK’s largest holiday company, will resume its operations on Saturday 24th October with more flights to follow.
TUI’s managing director for UK and Ireland, Andrew Flintham, welcomed the decision to put the most popular winter sun destination to the safe list.
“We haven’t been able to take people to the Canary Islands for 89 days, when the sudden quarantine and subsequent travel advice was imposed with little notice. We’re therefore delighted that UK flights will now resume from Saturday.”
Flintham added that the company is urging the government “to continue to work closely with the industry on airport testing so we can open up more destinations in the coming weeks.”
Adventure company Explore Worldwide said it will now increase the number of small group trips it runs to Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Tenerife and La Gomera over the winter.
Jet2 and EasyJet, won’t be able to resume flights until 30 October and 2 November respectively.
A spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents described the announcement by Shapps as “a bit of light at the end of a very dark tunnel for the travel industry”.
Liechtenstein has been removed from the list. “The latest data indicates we need to remove Liechtenstein from the Travel Corridors list,” said Shapps.