Lo Bue-Said’s comments on Thursday (5 August) were echoed by Abta boss Mark Tanzer, who said the government was still failing to fully capitalise on the UK’s successful vaccine roll-out, and Airlines UK chief Tim Alderslade, who branded the latest update to the UK’s traffic light regime "another missed opportunity".

Wednesday’s update (4 August), in some respects, brought the most significant set of developments to the regime since it was launched in June; another seven countries were added to the green list, albeit few that stand out as summer holiday destinations, while key transit locations such as the UAE and Qatar were given amber status.

Elsewhere, Spain was spared the same "amber plus" treatment as France, with amber plus status – exclusion from the easing of quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated amber list arrivals – scrapped altogether. There was also no introduction of an amber watchlist after the proposal was rounded rejected by travel before it was even enacted.

Arrivals from Spain, though, are being "advised" or "recommended" to take a pre-departure PCR test rather than a cheaper, quicker antigen test owing to the prevalence – according to the Department of Transport – of several variants of Covid-19, including the Beta variant, which aren’t circulating widely in the UK.

Lo Bue-Said hailed the demise of amber plus, while stressing France should never have been placed in a special category of one in the first place, particularly given it is now understood the spike in Beta cases that saw the government exclude France from the UK’s more lenient amber list quarantine rules actually occurred in the French department of Reunion, 6,000 miles from the mainland.

The Advantage chief said moving the UAE and Qatar to amber was welcome, opening up two "key international airport hubs" in Dubai and Doha, but criticised the government for its "somewhat bizarre" ambiguity on pre-departure testing for holidaymakers coming home from Spain with it failing to make a clear ruling on what people should do.

"Outbound travel continues to be severely restricted, and the government continues to fall behind some of our European counterparts who recognise the importance of opening up international travel and allowing free movement of their vaccinated citizens," said Lo Bue-Said.

"We have one of the highest vaccination roll-outs in the world and yet the we remain one of the most restricted when it comes to traveling internationally. Removing the pre-departure test would create more confidence among travellers. The testing regime needs to be simplified, particularly for those who are double vaccinated.”

’Snail’s pace’

Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said France regaining amber status, and Spain and Greece retaining theirs, came as a boost for the "critical" school holiday season allowing fully vaccinated people and their families to travel without having to quarantine on their return. But like Lo Bue-Said, he was critical of the government’s lack of ambition.

"The government is still failing to capitalise fully on the success of the vaccine roll-out with a very cautious approach to the green list and failure to relax restrictions on travel, including requirements for multiple tests even when visiting low risk destinations," said Tanzer.

"As a result, the UK is falling behind our European competitors and the opening up of international travel from the UK is progressing at a snail’s pace – making it extremely difficult for travel agents and tour operators to generate enough income to kick-start a recovery, which is desperately needed to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods."

Tanzer added the industry needed to see a "greater sense of urgency" from government to both get people travelling and to support the industry, with furlough winding down and in the ongoing absence of any sector-specific support for travel.

"Travel agents, tour operators and travel management companies haven’t had access to the same level of grant support as other industries yet their opportunity to trade their way out of the crisis remains severely restricted by the government," said Tanzer. "The government also needs to be transparent to the travelling public and the travel industry about the basis on which these decisions are made.”

Alderslade, meanwhile, said with the summer quickly passing, international travel had not yet had "anything like the reopening it was hoping for". "This puts us at odds with our European neighbours and clearly does not represent the liberation of aviation that the prime minister has spoken of," said Alderslade.

“Alongside the continuation of expensive testing and a much smaller than hoped for expansion of the green list – which makes less sense by the day given where we are with the vaccination programme - this is yet another blow to the sector and families desperate to get away, and means the UK continues to open up far slower than the rest of Europe.”