ARCHIVED - Spanish Government lifts restrictions on flights from United Kingdom

Whether the British Government will permit tourists to fly to Spain is another thing altogether

The confusion for British nationals wanting to fly to Spain has become even more complicated following an announcement by the Spanish government on Tuesday March 23 that the restrictions on entry which have been applied to UK nationals since before Christmas, will be lifted.

The same restrictions expressly prohibit the entry of UK nationals to Spain for anything other than essential reasons or for returning residents in the same way as those relating to Brazil and South Africa.
The normal process is for these to be reviewed every fortnight and up until today the restrictions have been automatically renewed.

However, today the Spanish government has announced that the restrictions which are in place until March 30th and relate to the subsequent period until April 13 will only be re-applied to Brazil and South Africa and not to British residents.

"The extension of flight restrictions is maintained with South Africa and Brazil, not with the United Kingdom. The situation in relation to the Schengen Area can now be normalized," said Government spokeswoman, María Jesús Montero.

British citizens entering Spain will be required to have a negative PCR carried out a maximum of 72 hours in advance, as is the same situation with European countries.

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The confusing message for those attempting to travel coming from the UK however, effectively nullifies the announcement made by the Spanish authorities today and comes on top of an announcement by the British government that they are about to introduce legislation banning British residents from going on holiday abroad until the end of June.

The original date of May 17 which was “pencilled-in” by the UK Gov as being the date on which international travel was set to resume is now looking distinctly unlikely, and according to reports in the UK media on Tuesday, the Govt. is set to not only extend the ban on taking foreign holidays until the end of June, but also add in a fine of £5,000 for those who ignore the ban.

Boris Johnson warned yesterday that a third wave of coronavirus in Europe would “wash up on our shores” and it is now more than likely that quarantine-free holidays may not be possible to most destinations until August or September.

Draft laws laying out Johnson’s road map out of lockdown, will make leaving the UK without a “reasonable excuse” impossible until the end of June, destroying the plans of all those who had rushed to book flights to Spain when the date of May 17th was originally given.

The plans still have to be agreed by Parliament on Thursday, but the recent “hint” by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps who said it was "too early to tell" when holidays abroad would be allowed, allied with comments made by Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the government's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which feeds into Sage, who said: "I think that international travel this summer is, for the average holidaymaker, sadly I think, extremely unlikely.

"I think we are running a real risk if we do start to have lots of people going overseas in July, for instance, and August because of the potential for bringing more of these new variants back into the country” and the comment by his colleague Prof Andrew Hayward, from Sage, who said it was "unlikely" the government would want to encourage travel to European countries currently experiencing high levels of coronavirus infections, should have been more than enough warning that the Government was about to make another dramatic change to the plans announced earlier.

."What is really dangerous is if we jeopardise our vaccination campaign by having these variants, where the vaccines don't work as effectively, spreading more rapidly," he said.

On April 12 the government’s global travel task force reports, and by that date a clearer indication should be forthcoming about whether domestic UK holidays will be permitted, starting with the re-opening of self-catering accommodation. Hotels are not scheduled to re-open until May 17th, but of course, all this may yet change, depending on the evolution of the virus in Europe.

At the moment there have been new surges in France, German, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands and to a lesser degree in Germany, leading to further restrictions and some lockdowns.

Germany has just announced a short, sharp, shock lockdown for 5 days ahead of the Easter celebrations. Mixed messages have also been criticised from the German government after thousands of Germans rushed to book holidays to Spain when travel restrictions were removed. Although ministers insisted that the removal of a restriction was not an invitation to travel, the situation has provoked fierce criticism within Spain , leading to the insane situation that a German may travel to the Alicante province for a holiday, but a resident of Madrid may not travel to the apartment next door as movement within Spain is prohibited.

Yesterday the EU requested greater “coherence” in restrictions, but today the situation is even more confusing for Brits trying to book a holiday in Spain this summer.