Fears over Spain and Greece grow as holidaymakers await travel review

There are growing concerns that Spain and Greece could be added to the government’s “amber plus” travel list in the coming days after a surge in Covid cases.

Yesterday Number 10 has confirmed it will release a review this week into its traffic light system for international travel, with the status of vaccinated tourists to be considered.

The government earlier said it would release a “checkpoint” review into how the system functions before Saturday.

However, France could be taken off the “amber plus” list at the review, giving holidaymakers a glimmer of hope, it was reported.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson confirmed that the review will be released this week and that it will consider the different restrictions for people travelling from red, amber and green list countries.

“We’ve spoken about traveling to the US and EU and that will be a part of our review into international travel,” they said.

“We keep these measures under review and we’re continually reviewing the latest scientific evidence and data.

“It will definitely look at vaccines for international citizens.”

Currently, the government only allows people to avoid quarantine when arriving from amber list countries if they have been double-jabbed in the UK.

There have been widespread calls to expand this to include those who have received two jabs of any UK-approved vaccine, regardless of where they were administered.

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When announcing the change of policy, Grant Shapps said that the government was planning to expand the amber list exemption to cover international travellers later in the summer.

The update comes after the UK’s airports reported their busiest weekend since the pandemic began last spring, with 393,000 leaving these shores for popular holiday destinations across Europe.

Despite the nascent return of travel, Heathrow today warned that the UK was beginning to fall behind European rivals as a result of the continued restrictions.

“The UK is emerging from the worst effects of the health pandemic, but is falling behind its EU rivals in international trade by being slow to remove restrictions”, said chief executive John Holland-Kaye.

“Replacing PCR tests with lateral flow tests and opening up to EU and US vaccinated travellers at the end of July will start to get Britain’s economic recovery off the ground.”

In a letter to Shapps, the airline industry called for significant shifts to the current system, describing the government’s decision-making so far as “opaque” and “disproportionate”.

“We continue to believe that the traffic light framework can safely be adjusted at the next checkpoint to provide a pathway for all vaccinated people to travel without restriction, alongside steps to reduce current restrictions for green and amber categories”, the letter read.

Alongside an exemption from quarantine for all passengers coming from amber list countries, the sector also called for moving more countries onto the green list and driving down the cost of testing.