Could be worse, could make you look like a letterbox!!:=

I am not laughing. Well maybe. Am I allowed to admit that?

LTNman

Yes it was sarcastic. I am very pleased with the progress made by science. I am not anti vax, in fact I welcome it and I hope it will help a great deal towards bringing the COVID crisis to an end.
However I am cynical with regards to the narrative and commentary we have been given for the best part of a year. I find Matt Hancock's fake tears on national television more offensive than a sarcastic comment, but he's the one in charge of leading us out of this situation, not me. (Thankfully)

Anyway this is about the COVID impact on Air Travel and I hope you can see that my sarcasm was aimed at pointing out that we are still a long way from seeing any kind of recovery. I won't get a vaccine for a long time (if ever) due to age and health profile. Similarly it will be the same for a large part of the economically active population. Adequate systems in place to protect the vulnerable and allow the healthy to carry on a bit more normally would have been more beneficial in my view, but it is what it is and it certainly won't change now.

I am very pleased for Mrs Keenan and anyone else that will benefit from the COVID vaccination programme. (And there is no sarcastic tone here).

LTNman

I hoped you would, but probably, the professionally offended may well be, well, offended!

FT reporting something which the airlines will be hoping isn't enforced:

'Most Britons will be barred from visiting EU countries from January 1 when pandemic safety rules that allow free travel within the bloc stop applying to the UK.The end of the Brexit transition period means that the UK will be subject to a system that only allows non-essential travel from a handful of non-EU countries with low coronavirus infection rates, the European Commission said.'

That would work better than our own quarantine rules then although I suspect it is just another of those fake Brexit stories. I am sure the Canaries would be upset if true seeing they have worked so hard.

As the law currently stands, after 31-Dec-2020 Covid rules in the EU treat UK citizens without a 2nd nationality in the same way as US citizens - i.e. no guaranteed right of entry into the EU - the number of Covid cases in the UK is too high to be treated as a low-risk country like New Zealand
However, it is very unlikely that that all EU members would really want to enforce such a rule. Thus what happens from 01-Jan-2021 is really up for haggling by politicians, along with everything else

Exactly, this is another unexpected consequence of Brexit. The EU has recommended that citizens of the EU and EEA as well as UK to be permitted free movement, but that isn't binding on all members, hence individual member states were free to require quarantine, even to ban people from entering their countries. Most nations have however not gone to such extreme measures. After 1st January the rules will be different for UK, and it is entirely plausible that countries, such as, say France could refuse admission to France from UK for tourism, unless for example they had got a negative PCR test, or a vaccination certificate, which the UK is so far refusing to issue.

All this has nothing whatsoever to do with trade agreements, and isn't "project fear", it's a bi-product of leaving the EU, and absolutely nobody knows how much it may negatively impact the leisure travel industry into 2021. Still, there's always Turkey!

Like we have already done to France

or in the other direction.

LTNman

Indeed, I've done at least two to get into / through France.

The point is that once the UK is finished with transition it makes it less of an issue for other countries to protect themselves against spreading of infections. There is pressure from the EC to adhere to their guidelines, less so for arrivals from third countries. France have always, for whatever reason, been first to "victimise" the British, what I was trying to point out is that it will be an easier decision, on purely public health grounds, for countries, perhaps even the EC to treat the UK as it does traveller from the USA.

LTNman

The main restriction isn't so much the self-certification requirement - anyone who can read and write ought to be able to satisfy that - but the fact that France may require you either to present a recent negative test result or, failing that, may ask you to take a test on arrival.

In either case, you will also have to demonstrate that your journey is essential.

This puts the potential situation clearly:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55256248

The BBC story does however confuse "rules" with "recommendations / guidance" as it has so often in throughout this pandemic. Individual states could take a different view, dependent upon the judgement they make between the economy and public health, but their governments would be looked on rather harshly by their voters if they allowed Brits, say unfettered access to The Balearics, with the consequence there was a huge new wave on the islands.

Would I book a holiday to an EU country at present? No, still probably not. Judging by the news report I saw yesterday however, many would disagree with my position.

Well that is the truth. Just wait and see the French fisherman blockage the French ports to the U.K. in the coming week or two. The French government has never had any backbone when dealing with protesters and strikers and will just standby and watch and probably secretly encourage it.

Is there ever a year that French ATC doesn’t go on strike?

Probably not, the vaccination for the "British disease" never reached France!

Given that travel is a major propagator of the disease, closing borders is probably a good thing. Gutting for the travel industry.

Most EU countries have mishandled the 2nd wave, even the German exception no longer applies with a new case rate higher than the UK. A few shut borders till March would help limit the effects of the disease.

Food for thought here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55246112

Most airlines have written off the winter schedule and budgeted for that. The problem comes if there's still significant travel restrictions come the summer schedule at the end of March.

Scots warned not to book a summer holiday next year.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...s-not-23140958

Meanwhile in the Canaries they are making it easier for holidaymakers to get there despite an increase in new cases this week.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-...covid-19430830

I'd expect nothing less from kim il sturgeon.

Canary Islands removed from the travel corridor. Anyone arriving back after 4am Saturday have to go into quarantine.

Botswana and Saudi Arabia are added to the corridor though

Just when everyone is a little upbeat about the Vaccine and travel firms are expecting holidays to resume in summer 2021 we hear this from the first minister of Scotland. Scots advised not to book any holidays. It's a joke how the hell does she know where we will be in 2021. Scotland is becoming a dictatorship, maybe its time to change the Saltire from Blue to RED.