The UK government is introducing further restrictions on travel from South Africa.
And the latest airline policy to be introduced is an announcement from Qatar Airways that it has suspended all new bookings between South Africa and the UK until further notice.
Qatar Airways was one of a handful of airlines still operating indirect flights between South Africa and the UK and while the airline has said it is still committed to operating 26 weekly flights from South Africa, despite banning new bookings between South Africa and the UK, agents are concerned about the increasingly limited travel options now available to their passengers.
Gm of Travel Counsellors South Africa, Mladen Lukic, told Travel News that it was vitally important that the route options for travel to and from South Africa were re-established to minimise long-term damage to the travel industry.
“PCR tests are qualified as a vehicle to determine if a traveller is COVID-19 negative or positive and until an eventuality where WHO provides information that a PCR test is not a valid indicator of being COVID free, these blanket bans on travel from South Africa remain ill-informed and damaging,” said Mladen. “The evidence shows that infection rates in South Africa are far lower than in many of the countries that have implemented travel bans against us and it is illogical to ban people coming from any destination when they are able to prove that they are free of the virus.”
FCTG gm product and marketing, Sue Garrett, said agents were battling with the situation, as international travel regulations and flight schedules to and from South Africa changed from day to day. She reiterated that Flight Centre was promoting domestic travel and encouraging clients to stay close to home at present and said she saw the roll-out of South Africa’s vaccine programme as becoming more and more important to reopen the world to us.
The UK is introducing a hotel quarantine policy for British citizens and residents travelling to England from 33 countries that it classifies as high risk, one of which is South Africa. The UK government said those affected must quarantine in government-appointed accommodation “without exception”.
Announcing the new measure, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said the tougher new rules would apply to travellers from “red-list countries where we have particular concern about new variants”. According to CNN, the UK Department of Transport list includes countries where the South African and Brazilian variants of the virus are believed to be spreading, as well as countries with strong travel links to South Africa and Brazil.
