Transport secretary Grant Shapps on Friday (3 July) announced a list of 59 countries from which travellers can return without having to self-isolate for a fortnight upon arrival.
These will take effect from next Friday (10 July). The list omits North America, Central and Latin America, the Middle East and Africa in their entirety, with the exception of Reunion.
Australia, New Zealand, Greece and Cyprus are all listed, despite these destinations already having made clear they will continue to enforce restrictions on British travellers.
Greece recently extended its UK flight ban until 15 July, while Cyprus is barring entry to anyone who has been in the UK in the past 14 days. Australia and New Zealand, meanwhile, are not expected to reopen their borders for some time.
There will initially be no air corridor with Portugal following recent spikes in cases in Lisbon and the Algarve. This is despite the Foreign Office exempting travel to Portugal’s island territories – the Azores and Madeira – from its global no-travel advisory.
Elsewhere in Europe, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine are excluded.
The US and Canada are also excluded, as is Mexico and the rest of Central America, and all of Latin America – this is despite Uruguay featuring on a separate EU third country safe travel list.
Tunisia and Morocco do not feature, despite being praised for their response to their respective coronavirus epidemics, and nor does Egypt. Turkey, however, is included, and is also on the FCO’s list of travel advice exemptions, marking it out as a potential summer 2020 hotspot.
No Middle Eastern states make the initial travel corridor, meaning travel to the UAE, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Qatar, among others, will involve 14 days self-isolation upon return.
Other destinations missing from the travel corridor announcement include India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and China.
