Hundreds of thousands of Brits in scramble to get home as Spain insists it’s safe
Spain has said outbreaks of new coronavirus cases are isolated and under control after the UK abruptly ordered people coming in from the country to quarantine for two weeks.
The sudden announcement has sparked travel chaos for over one million Britons who are currently in Spain or had holidays booked.
More than 600,000 British holidaymakers were estimated to be in Spain when the air bridge was pulled suddenly. Many are in a frantic scramble to come home despite pleas from the country’s foreign minister that ‘Spain is safe for Spaniards and for tourists’.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab insisted Britons cannot be penalised by their employers for having to quarantine. However, leading lawyers were quick to refute his claims with warnings that tourists could be sacked for staying off work.
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Grahame Anderson, an employment barrister, warned on Sunday: ‘If you come back from Spain today and your boss says you have to be in work on Monday, there’s not a great deal you can do if they say ”well if you don’t come in I’m not going to pay you”.
‘And if you haven’t been there for two years, you’ve got very little protection against being dismissed as well.’
Long queues of disgruntled tourists piled up at airports on Sunday after being given just hours notice that they faced a two-week quarantine.
The announcement was made on Saturday and came into effect that day at midnight.
Speaking to MailOnline, an NHS worker who wished to remain anonymous said: ‘We have worked on an NHS project for 14 weeks, seven days a week without a break.
‘Our first chance to to get a holiday as a family, we are now facing the prospect of 14 day quarantine and the project failing to finish on time as it still has 4 weeks to go until completion and we will not be there.
‘No notice. No chance for us to get back in time. Unbelievable. What thanks for the hard work and efforts we have put in.’
Emily Harrison, from Essex, also expressed her frustration as she waited for a flight out of Madrid. ‘It’s really bad because it’s just come all of a sudden, it’s not given very much time to prepare so everyone is now panicking,’ she said.
‘It ruins plans for everybody. We had a wedding to go to and we had plans to visit friends and family who we haven’t seen in a very long time and now we are going to have to cancel all those plans, so it’s really quiet upsetting.’
The airline industry also reacted with dismay, calling it a big blow.
The UK’s biggest tour operator, Tui, has cancelled all mainland Spanish holidays until August 9. British Airways is still operating flights, but said the move was ‘throwing thousands of Britons’ travel plans into chaos’.
Ryanair has said it is not planning to reduce capacity flying to Spain after the government’s ‘regrettable’ decision to advise against all non-essential travel to the country’s mainland.
Chief Financial Officer Neil Sorahan said on Monday: ‘I think it is regrettable, very disappointing.
‘I have no doubt that we will see other localised outbreaks and we need to be flexible enough to deal with them as they arise over the next number of weeks and months.’
The government pulled its air bridge with Spain with almost immediate effect this week following a spike of coronavirus cases in some parts of the country.
The number of cases there has tripled in two weeks, with more than 900 new infections reported on Friday.
The majority of new cases seem to be restricted to a few regions, including Catalonia, where Barcelona is located, and Aragon.
However, the quarantine rules apply to all regions of Spain, including the Canary and Balearic islands – though politicians in the latter say they are attempting to thrash out a regional air bridge.
On Sunday, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said the outbreaks were ‘perfectly controlled’ and that they had been expected once the restrictions were lifted.
‘Half of those who are Covid positive in Spain are asymptomatic, which gives a very clear indication of the huge efforts that all the regions in Spain are undertaking to test for Covid in its citizens,’ she said.
Ms González said the Canary and Balearic Islands, which are popular with tourists, have not recorded a resurgence in infections, insisting they were ‘very safe territories’. She added that the authorities would try to convince the UK government to exclude them from quarantine.
Dominic Rabb defended the swift decision on Sunday, saying it was taken based on data and analysis.
‘ I understand it is disruptive for those going through this who are in Spain or have been considering going but we must though be able to take swift, decisive action to protect the UK because we’ve made such progress in getting the virus down and prevent the virus re-taking hold in the UK,’ he said.
He warned that other countries may also be swiftly be removed from the list of ‘safe’ places to travel if infections rise there and that people should consider this before they book a holiday.
Spain was one of the worst hit countries in Europe by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 290,000 cases and over 28,000 deaths.
The British decision follows steps by Norway on Friday to re-impose a 10-day quarantine requirement for people arriving from Spain, while France advised people not to travel to the northeastern region of Catalonia.
Balearic Islands’ government chiefs say they are pinning their hopes on establishing ‘safe air corridors’ with the UK to save their summer season and thousands of holidays to Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza.
In a statement on its website, the islands’ government said: ‘We have been working over the last few hours to establish the basis for a safe air corridor with the UK, following the British government’s quarantine imposition for all holidaymakers returning from Spain.
‘The British government’s decision has caused great concern in the Balearic Islands’ government, given that it will cause serious problems to tourist activity in our islands.
‘One of the main arguments justifying the creation of a safe air corridor between the islands and the UK is the health situation here.
‘The islands have had eight confirmed Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past fortnight, whereas in the UK the figure is 14,1 and in Spain as a whole, 37,9.’
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