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Airlines, passengers and businesses scrambled to respond to a deluge of travel restrictions announced over the weekend to slow the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant.
An initial spate of flight bans from southern Africa, where omicron was first detected, gave way to more wide-ranging measures that will make travel more expensive and less convenient — if possible at all — recalling earlier days in the pandemic.
The U.K. re-introduced mandatory PCR tests for all arriving passengers and said they must self-isolate until receiving a negative result. Israel closed to all inbound foreign nationals for 14 days, the Philippines said travelers from European countries including Switzerland and the Netherlands won’t be welcome for several weeks and Singapore delayed the launch of vaccinated travel lanes with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
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Spain and Switzerland tightened access for arrivals from Britain, whose travel comeback has quickly been thrown into reverse. U.K. low-cost carrier EasyJet Plc said Sunday its flight schedule was operating as normal, “however we continue to monitor the situation closely.”
While the full impact will get clearer over coming days, “this will be problematic for business travel — particularly inbound into the U.K.,” said Martin Ferguson, a spokesman for American Express Global Business Travel.
Organizers of the World Aviation Festival in London told attendees the event will go on as scheduled starting Tuesday, the day the new U.K. rules come into effect. The group arranged for testing at two nearby hotels where delegates who are guests can self-isolate while awaiting results.
A separate, internal corporate event in the U.K. was shifted to hybrid from in-person, because the new testing and isolation requirements would have caught out some attendees set to arrive on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
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Source : time
