Escape from France: Chaos as thousands of Britons battle to return home before 4AM tomorrow

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Hundreds of thousands of British tourists are desperately scrambling to get home today after the UK chaotically added France to its quarantine list, with prices for flights, trains and ferries soaring after the announcement was made.  

A weekend of chaos is underway as an estimated 500,000 British holidaymakers in France likely to try to escape the country and get home ahead of the quarantine, set to come in at 4am tomorrow.  

Travellers rushing to get back to the UK today face paying hundreds of pounds as air fares are now more than six times higher than normal for flights from Paris to London – the cheapest BA tickets being sold for £452.

The cheapest ticket on a Eurostar train from Paris to London is £210, compared with £165 last Saturday, a rise of almost 30 per cent.  

The cost of taking a car through the Channel Tunnel on Eurotunnel Le Shuttle services this morning is £260. All trains after midday are fully booked.

P&O Ferries has limited availability, but one person travelling with a car from Calais to Dover can buy a ticket for £200.

Meanwhile private jet charter company PrivateFly said demand for flights out of countries being removed from the UK’s quarantine-exemption list has trebled since the announcement was made on Thursday night. 

In more bad news for British holidaymakers, it has been suggested Greece could soon be added to the quarantine list, after a spike in its infection rate, with a record 235 cases recorded on August 12. Daily new cases in the country were in the 30s towards the end of July. 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps insisted the Government had taken ‘a practical approach’ to the new restrictions.

However, the move was criticised by France’s secretary of state for European affairs, who said it would lead to ‘reciprocal measures’ across the Channel.

Clement Beaune tweeted: ‘A British decision which we regret and which will lead to reciprocal measures, all in hoping for a return for normal as soon as possible.’  

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of trade body Airlines UK, said: ‘It’s another devastating blow to the travel industry already reeling from the worst crisis in its history.

‘Having the political will to move to a sub-national approach to quarantine, in addition to a testing regime for arriving passengers so that those testing negative can avoid having to self isolate – which other countries like Germany have already implemented – is urgently needed.’ 

As the government’s decision to put France on the quarantine list sparks chaos: 

• Travellers in southern France face struggle getting back to UK before the 4am Saturday quarantine deadline;
• Car-carrying Channel Tunnel trains and Eurotunnel Le Shuttle said they are fully booked until tomorrow;  
• Transport Secretary said estimated 160,000 holidaymakers are expected to look to return to UK from France;
• Grant Shapps said ‘in all of the things to do with coronavirus, there always has had to be a cut-off’
• France has vowed to retaliate after it was added to quarantine list and said it ‘regrets the UK’s decision’
• Nicola Sturgeon ‘stopped holidaymakers from getting an extra 24 HOURS to get back from France’

Travellers returning to Britain from France today told of their scramble home to avoid having to quarantine. 

Student Yasmine Sellay, 24, from Wimbledon, South London, was among a packed Eurostar train that arrived at St Pancras station from Paris this morning. 

She said: ‘I wanted to get home before the restrictions are enforced. ‘I didn’t know that France had been added to the UK quarantine list until last night and as I don’t want to isolate for a fortnight I came home today. 

‘I’d been in Paris for a month and a half because it’s where I’m originally from and I was visiting family and friends.   

‘When I arrived in France at the end of June, I had to stay in with my relatives for more than a week and couldn’t go out. 

‘I found it really hard to do so I was keen not to have to do the same when I came back to London.  The Eurostar was full so I think many other people had the same idea as me.’  

Engineers Carolina Monteiro, 24, and Douglas Pagani, 29, who live in France, told PA of their relief at arriving in the UK for a 10-day campervan trip to the Lake District and Yorkshire – just before quarantine measures come into effect on Saturday morning.

Speaking outside St Pancras station, Mr Pagani said: ‘We’re very happy to have the correct ticket just in time. At first I was scared looking at all the information to make sure we could enter here, then we saw it was perfect.

‘It was a relief that we could meet our friends here.’

Ms Monteiro added: ‘We have had this trip planned for three or four months, so we’re lucky to be here just in time.’

Travellers in the south of France face a struggle getting back to the UK before the 4am Saturday quarantine deadline. 

Flight booking website Skyscanner suggested there were no direct flights from Biarritz to London.

The cheapest option it offered was to take one flight to Paris, another to Belfast and a third arriving at London Stansted shortly before midnight, at a total cost of £284.

The lowest priced ticket involving just two flights is £579 with Air France, changing in Paris.

Whichever mode of transport travellers use, they will need to move quickly as many services will be fully booked by Friday afternoon.   

He added that weekly changes to quarantine rules on a national level ‘have proven so disruptive to airlines and passengers’. 

Undeterred passengers at London St Pancras made their way onto the 10.24am Eurostar service to Paris, including lawyer John Strange, 60, from Reading.

He said he was going to the French capital for 10 days and it was possible for him to work from home on his return.

He said: ‘It’s not a disaster for me but it seems for many people it will be, particularly those with young families, it’s going to be catastrophic.

‘I’m sure many will have to cancel their plans and have to accept all that pain and cost that goes with it.’

A traveller who gave her name as Sonata K, a 39-year-old dentist, was due to head to Paris for four nights with her mother – but cancelled her plans after finding out about the quarantine measures at St Pancras on Friday morning.

She said: ‘It’s not worth it to go out and have to self isolate. With my work I can’t do the procedures from home.

‘We were too late to get the news, we’re just finding out here but it’s better than on the train.

‘We’re looking at going to Cardiff and checking trains now, but the weather is changing a bit.’

She added that for £30 they could change their Eurostar tickets to another day and said one hotel had charged them one night’s stay for late cancellation. 

Jack Birkbeck, 23, and George Raybould, 24, were travelling to France to spend five days in the commune of Bantanges, eastern France between Lyon and Dijon to celebrate Jack’s 24th birthday on Saturday with his parents.

The friends, who both work in retail from Maidstone, Kent, are flying out to Geneva with EasyJet today.

They went to sleep thinking they would not have to quarantine but woke up to the news they would have to self isolate for 14 days.

Despite considering cancelling the trip, they decided to go ahead with it due to the money already spent on the break.

Jack said: ‘I literally woke up at 6am to my mum texting me saying ‘are you still coming?’ as they’ve introduced a quarantine. I went to sleep thinking we were safe.

‘The last case where we are going was on July 27 so they’re going strong for the past few weeks. It’s probably even safer than Maidstone.

‘If we had more time to think about it then maybe we would have cancelled going but we didn’t even have time to change our mind really.

‘I hope the government are doing their best and believe they’ve introduced this now in the best interests of everyone.

‘My boss will probably be angry at me having to isolate. But I’m going to spend quarantine doing work training to make up for it.’

George added: ‘It’s just our luck that the day we go they announce quarantine just hours before we jet off.

‘As bad as it sounds, where we are going is super rural. It’s not exactly the epicentre of the French pandemic. We are not going out and socialising and will be self contained.

‘Of course we’re still going to quarantine when we return home but I like to think the chances of us getting it are very low and if anything, we are more likely to give it to them. That would be the classic British thing to do.

‘I’ve only just come off furlough so I don’t think work will take it too well. I feel bad for my colleagues but theres not much I could have done at such short notice.’

A Heathrow spokesman said: ‘The UK needs a more sustainable long-term plan for the resumption of travel than quarantine roulette.  

‘Testing could provide an opportunity to safely reduce the length of quarantine in certain circumstances, protecting both the health and wealth of the nation as we pave a path towards a new normal.

‘As ever, our teams will be on hand to support passengers impacted by the travel restrictions but we urge Government to work with us to trial a solution which could help to provide more certainty.’

Car-carrying Channel Tunnel trains are fully booked until Saturday.

Eurotunnel Le Shuttle said in a statement: ‘Due to the recent Government announcement, our shuttles are now fully booked until tomorrow morning.

‘There is no more ticket availability and we are not selling tickets at check-in.

‘Please do not arrive at the terminal unless you have a ticket valid for travel today.’

Private jet charter company PrivateFly said demand for flights out of countries being removed from the UK’s quarantine-exemption list has trebled since the announcement was made on Thursday night. 

Chief executive Adam Twidell said: ‘Following the changes to the UK’s quarantine list overnight, we’ve received a surge in demand for private jet travel out of affected countries, with three times the average number of enquiries and bookings for flights to the UK from France, the Netherlands and Malta, before 4am on Saturday morning.

‘We’ve also had a number of inquiries from clients booked to travel to these destinations in the coming weeks to change their travel plans in order to avoid quarantine zones.

‘We can arrange flights at very short notice with the flexibility to change route at the last minute, however availability is limited as the spike in demand coincides with what is already the peak summer season for private leisure travel.’ 

Explaining the quarantine decision on BBC Breakfast this morning, Mr Shapps said: ‘The reality is that in all of the things to do with coronavirus, there always has had to be a cut-off and we’ve seen this throughout, haven’t we, in the way that rules have had to be implemented and, so, ‘if we can do this, why can’t we do that?’, that’s always going to be the case.

‘What we have to do is provide clear guidance and, in this case, clear law in order to require people to quarantine.

‘I just want to stress it is very important that people do quarantine. Everybody returning to the UK, no matter where from, doesn’t matter whether you’re in a travel corridor country or a quarantine country, must at this stage fill in a passenger locator form.

‘That is the law and you may well find that people call up to check where you are, and you’ll be breaking the law if you were not quarantining, if that was a requirement for the country you’d come from.’

Mr Shapps said it will not be necessary for people to quarantine on their return to the UK from France if they do so before Saturday at 4am.

The Transport Secretary told BBC Breakfast an estimated 160,000 holidaymakers are expected to look to return to the UK from France.

He added: ‘It’s a practical approach as well which has enabled all fours parts of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England – to implement the same time at 4am where there are no flights in the air at least tomorrow.

‘But, look, I accept your point, you can always argue one way or the other. We have to make a decision on it and we have to do that based on science and medicine, and that’s what we’ve done, we’ve taken the advice and implemented on that basis.’

Asked if he would encourage those returning to the UK if they should self-isolate, even if they fall outside of the official quarantine deadline, Mr Shapps said: ‘That’s not legally required.

‘But what I would say to everybody is look out for the signs, everyone knows what we’re talking about – the persistent cough, the high temperature, the change in taste or smell, so everyone should look out for those signs.

‘But, no, it’s not necessary to quarantine unless you’re coming back after 4am on Saturday and those are the rules.

‘I think the truth of this is, as everyone watching realises, there’s no perfect way to deal with coronavirus.

‘Unless you were going to have a sliding scale that sort of said if you stay another 24 hours the you must quarantine for X amount of time, another 36 hours for Y amount of time, you know, clearly there has to be a cut-off somewhere.’

Mr Shapps added: ‘To be clear, the Joint Biosecurity centre have cleared our approach to this.’

The boss of Channel Tunnel operator has Getlink warned many travellers may not be able to get back to the UK – and told them not to turn up at terminals without a booking as trains are ‘already pretty much fully booked’. 

John Keefe, Getlink’s director of public affairs, told BBC’s Newsnight: ‘We just haven’t got the space to take everybody who might suddenly want to come up to the coast. So what we are saying to people is amend your booking online, make sure there’s space before you travel to the terminal.’ 

After a week of speculation ministers acted on a worsening coronavirus situation across the Channel, ministers ordered travellers returning from the popular destination to isolate for 14 days. 

The move came after Boris Johnson said the UK would be ‘ruthless’ when it came to travel quarantine even with its ‘closest and dearest friends’. 

Mr Keefe said there was ‘some possibility of adding additional trains in the off-peak periods’ but would-be travellers must check online before heading to the terminal.

‘The important thing is that people understand that it’s not going to be easy to get back and they have to be sensible about this and not get themselves into difficulties,’ he said.  

France recorded 2,669 new cases of coronavirus yesterday, up from 2,524 on Wednesday. It is a record figure for the nation since it came out of lockdown.  

The review of the rules saw the Netherlands, Monaco and Malta added to the quarantine list – and Portugal remains on it, along with Spain.

The Turks and Caicos Islands and Aruba in the Caribbean have also lost their places. ‘We have got to be absolutely ruthless about this, even with our closest and dearest friends and partners. I think everybody understands that,’ Mr Johnson told reporters as he visited Northern Ireland yesterday.  

‘We will be looking at the data a bit later on this afternoon – looking exactly where France and other countries are getting to.

‘We can’t be remotely complacent about our own situation. 

‘Everybody understands that in a pandemic you don’t allow our population to be reinfected or the disease to come back in.

‘That is why the quarantine measures are very important and we have to apply them in very sftrict way.’

Speculation has been mounting about quarantine exemptions being scrapped as infections rise across much of Europe. 

Hundreds of thousands of Britons are either on holiday in France or planning to go there, but yesterday it recorded more than 2,500 cases – a record since lockdown was eased.

The country appears to be perilously close to the yardstick of 20 cases per 100,000 population in a seven-day period. 

But ministers are believed to be prepared to hold off on restrictions when changes are announced, with the situation kept under close observation. 

The quarantine list already includes Spain and Portugal. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not believed to have signed off on the adjustments yet. 

Travellers are expected to be given around 30 hours notice of any changes coming into force, so they can make new arrangements if required.  

The Netherlands (23.1 per 100,000), Gibraltar (35.6), Monaco (38.2), Malta (46.7), San Marino (53.0), the Faroe Islands (198.5), Turks and Caicos (278.9) and Aruba (547.9) all have higher rates of new cases per 100,000 than France.

Those on the list with a slightly lower rate than France are Denmark (15.3 per 100,000), Iceland (14.7), the Czech Republic (14.0), Switzerland (13.3) and Poland (12.7). 

All the above have now overtaken Portugal’s rate of 12.4 new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days, but despite this, Portugal remains on the list of countries from which all arrivals to the UK, including those returning from holiday, must quarantine for two weeks.

Downing Street reminded potential holidaymakers this week that ‘there is no risk free way of travelling overseas’ with Boris Johnson adding that he ‘would not hesitate’ to bring in travel restrictions for other countries. 

The latest data on coronavirus cases on foreign soil is being analysed by the Government’s Joint Biosecurity Centre (JCB), which reports to Health Secretary Matt Hancock. 

Britons in France and other countries could be forced to make a dash home or risk being forced to quarantine on their return to the UK, should the government decide to remove more countries from the list.    

 

On Tuesday, the UK updated its travel ‘green list’, but did not take Portugal off the quarantine list, in a blow to the country’s economy that benefits greatly from tourism from the UK.

The UK Government was warned that cases in Portugal had not fallen fast enough to be able to safely add the country to the ‘green list’.  

On Monday, France reported the first significant rise in the number of coronavirus patients in hospital since the lockdown was lifted, although it fell again on Tuesday before rising two days on the bounce. 

Earlier this week France‘s prime minister told his citizens to ‘pull themselves together’ amid a fresh surge in coronavirus cases. 

Jean Castex said the public was becoming careless and raised the spectre of a second lockdown after a rise of more than 10,000 cases in the last week. 

‘If we don’t act collectively, we expose ourselves to the heightened risk that the rebound in the epidemic becomes hard to control,’ Castex said on a visit to an intensive care ward in the South of France. 

Some parts of France have tightened their mask rules despite the summer heatwave, with police now set to ramp up checks on face coverings – while neighbouring Belgium yesterday made masks compulsory in all public spaces including outdoors.

Travel chiefs: This is a devastating blow to the industry 

ByTom Payne Transport Correspondent For The Daily Mail

The bombshell decision to reimpose quarantine on France is a ‘devastating blow’ to Britain’s crippled travel sector, industry leaders said last night.

Airlines and tour operators have suffered colossal losses during the pandemic as a result of plummeting passenger numbers and sweeping global travel restrictions.

A long-awaited announcement on travel corridors brought some respite in mid-July – but a steady yet sharp rise in coronavirus cases on the continent has brought hopes of a revived travel season to a sudden end.

Travel bosses last night said the decision to reimpose quarantine on France – weeks after Spain, Belgium, Andorra and the Bahamas were also kicked off the ‘safe’ country list – effectively signals the death knell for foreign holidays for the rest of the year.

It also spells misery for millions of Britons with ruined trips, who now face a battle to claim refunds from airlines which may refuse to give them their money back.

Most holidaymakers are unlikely to be covered on travel insurance as the majority of policies bought after March 10 carry no cover for Covid 19-related cancellations.

Travel bosses last night criticised the Government’s inaction on airport testing – seen by many as a viable alternative to blanket quarantine measures – and blasted ministers’ ‘chaotic approach’ for throwing the industry into chaos and uncertainty.

One senior industry figure told the Daily Mail: ‘It has been chaos at every turn. The latest announcement on France is a watershed moment and a dark day for our industry. We are in uncharted waters. It is hard to see where we go from this.’

Gloria Guevara, president of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said the ‘worst fears’of the industry were coming true, and estimated three million UK jobs could be lost due to the ongoing uncertainty.

Tim Alderslade of trade body Airlines UK added: ‘It’s another devastating blow to the travel industry already reeling from the worst crisis in its history.

‘Having the political will to move to a sub-national approach to quarantine, in addition to a testing regime for arriving passengers so that those testing negative can avoid having to self-isolate – which other countries like Germany have already implemented – is urgently needed.’

He said this would ‘provide carriers and customers with additional certainty around the ability to operate this autumn and winter’.

Karen Dee of the Airport Operators Association said: ‘Our airports are facing pressures that were unimaginable six months ago and it is essential that the Government work with the industry to introduce regional travel corridors to low-risk areas and agree a package of financial measures that support our airports who have already lost over £2billion since the start of the pandemic.

‘We have consistently called for support including relief from business rates and an extension to employment support beyond October and it is long overdue that the Government provides the same level of support to aviation that it has provided to other sectors.’

Rory Boland of consumer group Which? said: ‘It’s understandable that the Government wants to restrict travel to these countries at this time, but the burden of this decision disproportionally falls on holidaymakers – thousands of whom are likely to be left significantly out of pocket because their airline will refuse to refund them.

‘Unlike tour operators, airlines now routinely ignore Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel warnings and refuse refunds because, they argue, the flight is still operating. Some major airlines, like Ryanair, won’t even allow customers to rebook without charging a hefty fee.

‘The Government wants us to act responsibly and not travel to countries with an FCO warning, but it needs to make it clear to airlines that they too need to act responsibly and not ignore government travel advice in an effort to pocket customer cash.’ 

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