BRITS have been warned by the Transport Secretary not to book any summer holidays yet, after the lockdown was extended.
Grant Shapps said he would certainly not be booking any trips as the weather warms up.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Shapps said “clearly people will want to see what the trajectory of this disease is in the next few weeks”.
He added: “I won’t be booking a summer holiday at this point, let’s put it that way.”
Asked whether passenger numbers could be restricted after lockdown measures are removed, Mr Shapps said companies might decide to keep employees working from home.
He said: “It may well be in the future companies say actually it’s worked pretty well having some of our staff working from remote locations, why don’t we carry on doing that?
“Actually why does everybody have to get up and travel during the rush hour at a particular time in the morning?”
He added: “There may be different ways to help, both in terms of businesses and organisations making those decisions, but also to do with the way that Government responds to spread the load better.”
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced there was an indefinite ban on all non-essential travel earlier this month.
The Transport Secretary’s comments come after Mr Raab, who is deputising for the PM, announced the lockdown would be extended to avoid a deadly “second peak” of COVID-19.
A spokesperson for No10 said there was no certainty on when people would be able to start booking holidays.
They said: “I would say two things on that, one is that while we are making progress in our fight against coronavirus, we are not able to say with certainty at the point in which the social distancing measures can be relaxed.
“In terms of travelling in the UK for holidays, that is not something which the current social distancing guidelines allow for.
“In terms of travel abroad the advice of the (Foreign Office) continues to be that you should only go abroad for essential travel only.
“As of today it’s a fact the guidelines and the official (Foreign Office) advice does not allow for people going on holidays.”
EU Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen has also warned people against making summer holiday plans, because experts don’t yet know how long the coronavirus pandemic will keep European countries closed.
She said earlier this week: “I’d advise everyone to wait before making holiday plans.
“At the moment, no one can make reliable forecasts for July and August.
“We will need to learn to live with this virus for many months, probably until next year.”
The entire aviation sector has been decimated by travel bans across the world.
British Airways announced earlier this month they had furloughed 28,000 staff and put them on the Government Job Retention Scheme.
