Holidaymakers in Portugal charged hundreds of pounds to beat quarantine

LISBON: Holidaymakers scrambling for flights home from Portugal before new quarantine requirements come into force are being charged hundreds of pounds.

People arriving in the UK from Portugal after 4am on Tuesday will need to self-isolate at home for 10 days after the Government moved it from the green list to the amber list. A seat on a Ryanair flight from the capital Lisbon to Manchester on Monday costs £339, whereas travel on the same route is available for just £75 on Wednesday.

British Airways is charging £348 for flights from Faro to London Heathrow on Sunday and Monday, but the price drops to £137 on Tuesday. The airline said it will operate more flights to meet demand for people returning home.

Tui, the UK’s largest tour operator, said it has 9,500 customers in Portugal but that was already due to have fallen to 2,000 by Tuesday because of the end of half-term for schoolchildren.

A spokeswoman told the PA news agency that half its customers with Portugal bookings for June have amended their trip – mostly until summer 2022 – while the other half plan to go ahead with it despite the quarantine rules.

“There is a lot of bewilderment and real frustration and confusion about what is happening,” she added. The firm is allowing consumers to change dates in response to Portugal moving to the amber list, but is not offering refunds as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not advise against travel to the country.

The requirement for travellers to take a coronavirus test in the three days before a flight to the UK departs is also creating difficulties for people in Portugal.

Property developer Simon Smith from Stamford, Lincolnshire, is currently in the Lagos area with his wife and two young children.

He hopes they can fly home on Saturday, earlier than planned, but they have been unable to get tested despite visiting five medical centres and the region’s main hospital. He was turned away from one centre after it ran out of testing kits. “There were about 35 people in the queue, all British, and they told us, ‘the first 15 are okay, but the rest of you might as well go home because we don’t have enough tests’, he told PA.

The family has been told the airport has a small amount of Covid tests available, so plan on turning up to their flight five hours early in the hopes of getting one.

“If we can’t get that, we can’t fly”, he said. “I have meetings on Friday, I can’t afford 10 days’ quarantine, it is a joke.”

A Portuguese epidemiologist claimed the decision to move Portugal to the amber tier was “an overreaction”. Professor Henrique Barros, president of Portugal’s National Health Council, said the country’s overall coronavirus situation is “relatively stable”.

He made the comments after Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said positive cases had doubled in the last three weeks in Portugal.

Prof Barros told Sky News: “We didn’t reach such an increase, except as I said in a specific area around Lisbon. “The overall picture in the country, we didn’t reach such figures.” The decision to move Portugal to the amber list means people returning to the UK from there must self-isolate at home for 10 days