London — Britain opened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers from the U.S. and the European Union on Monday as travel industry leaders urged the government to further ease restrictions and allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of a successful COVID-19 inoculation program.
The new rules came into effect amid reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government may add a new category to Britain’s traffic light system of travel restrictions, a move industry officials say would make many people decide to stay home.
As of Monday, fully vaccinated travellers from destinations on Britain’s “amber list” are allowed to enter the nation without self-isolating for up to 10 days. The government is considering creating an amber watchlist to warn individuals about destinations that may be downgraded due to rising infection rates or the emergence of recent variants.
“An amber watchlist will be seen as a massive red flag, which is likely to cause bookings to those nations on that watchlist to collapse,” Huw Merriman, chairman of the House of Commons Transport Committee, informed the BBC. “In my view, we don’t want any more uncertainty, complexity or anxiety for passengers or this beleaguered sector. It just wants clarity.”
British airlines and holiday companies are hoping for a late summer travel boom after the pandemic halted most international travel, slashing profits and threatening thousands of jobs. The number of passengers travelling via London’s Heathrow Airport, the U.K.’s busiest airport, fell 75% within the first half of this yr.
David and Susan Handfield were among the first beneficiaries of the new travel guidelines Monday, seeing their granddaughter Charlotta for the primary time after she and her mother and father stepped off a flight from Berlin.
Charlotta was born in February however virus concerns and travel restrictions prevented her parents from bringing her to London till now. Her grandmother greeted her with a delicate kiss on the forehead at Heathrow Airport.