Travel news live: New testing rules spark ‘chaotic’ scenes
A set of new, more onerous travel rules for UK travellers and visitors are set to make holidays more complex this festive season.
From today, vaccinated travellers wishing to enter the country must take a pre-departure test and present a negative result, as well as taking a PCR test – rather than a previously permitted lateral flow – within two days of arrival. They must also self-isolate until a negative result is returned.
The addition of a pre-departure test for double-jabbed passengers will apply to those aged 12 and over, travelling to the UK from any foreign country except Ireland and Ethiopia.
During the past two weeks, the government also added 11 countries to the formerly emptied red list, including South Africa, Botswana and, most recently, Nigeria.
Leaders and officials in red-listed countries expressed outrage at the “selective” listing of southern African countries, when omicron is now present in dozens of countries around the world.
Yesterday Nigeria’s high commissioner Sarafa Tunji Isola described the travel bans, by countries including the UK and US, as travel “apartheid”.
Follow all the latest travel updates below:
Lumo increases trains on East Coast main line
Lumo, the new “open access” train operator between Edinburgh and London, is stepping up services in a week’s time ahead of the Christmas rush.
From 14 December a new early morning southbound departure will leave the Scottish capital at 6.14am between Tuesday and Friday. It will also offer a non-stop trip from Newcastle at 7.57am, arriving at London King’s Cross at 10.50am.
The one-way fare for the first day from Edinburgh to London is currently £24.90. Lumo’s big rival, LNER, has a train that gets in 70 minutes earlier – but it is six times more expensive.
The return Lumo train leaves London at 12.18pm, arriving in Newcastle exactly three hours later and reaching Edinburgh at 4.41pm.
The new pattern of two trains each way from Saturday to Monday and three each way from Tuesday to Friday will continue to the end of the year.
Early in 2022 the frequency should increase to five per day in each direction.
No trains will run on 25 and 26 December.
(Simon Calder)
Simon Calder7 December 2021 13:19
Government restrictions bigger obstacle to travel than omicron fears
The rise of the omicron variant has had virtually no impact on holidaymakers’ travel plans but newly introduced government restrictions and red tape are putting Brits off going abroad, according to new research.
Travel specialist Holiday Extras has been running regular polls with UK holidaymakers about their travel plans for 2022.
When comparing its latest results to those from September, the company found that the presence of the new variant doesn’t seem to have dampened travellers’ enthusiasm for going abroad – in September, 92 per cent of people that had flown since 2019 said that they had plans to travel abroad in 2022, while in December this number was 90 per cent.
When asked what would deter them from international travel this year or next, the return of the unpredictability and onerous admin and testing requirements came out on top,…
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