TRAVEL corridors which could give Brits a summer holiday this year are being “actively worked on”, the Transport Secretary confirmed this evening.
Grant Shapps said that travel corridors supplemented by other ideas including testing at airports could be the best way out of the 14-day travel quarantine which could destroy the tourism industry.
He said the 2 week quarantine measures – which were put in place on Monday – would be reviewed at the end of June to see how they were working.
And he made it clear the Government would have an announcement then in a glimmer of hope for the nation’s summer holidays.
He told HOAR that the Government hopes to have “more to say on this before long” in a sign that the plan might not be far off.
Travel corridors – also known as air bridges – would involved a bi-lateral deal for people from two countries to go between without the need for a 14-day isolation period.
He said: “That’s something we’re actively working on”, but revealed no details of how it might work.
He said tonight: “As I’ve said before, air-bridges or travel corridors might be a potential way forward supplemented by things like testing.”
But he warned that any exemptions would have several things to consider – not just whether a country has a low rate of infection.
He added: “There’s clearly countries that have lower levels of infection but that may be they are yet to go into this rather than come out.
“We won’t throw away the good work that’s been done [to get the virus under control].
“We will only open up airbridges where it is safe to do so, and there will be more on that at the review period which is the 29 of June.”
Mr Shapps also hinted that the UK might not be able to open up air bridges all around the world at once, however.
He said: “We will have very sensible conversations… this would certainly be limited in the first place.”
At the moment individual EU nations like Spain have shunned one-on-one talks with Britain in favour of an EU-wide approach.
Tourism and airline bosses are worried that keeping flights grounded will destroy their industries before they’ve had any time to recover.
At the moment travel abroad is essential visits only, and holidays are still banned.
The Transport Secretary defended the controversial 14-day quarantine system as the “right” thing to do to make sure that the virus was not reimported.
People breaking the rules could face a fine of up to £1,000.
