EasyJet has used new research by the US-based Yale School of Public Health to show that “much of Europe” should be classified as green when the government announces the destination list in early May.

The airline has used the government’s published Covid policy on reopening international travel from 17 May to make this assessment on key European destinations.

This includes looking at the likely effect of the reopening travel on Covid hospitalisations in the UK, which easyJet estimates would only lead to a rise of less than 4% in UK hospital Covid admissions for travel to most European countries.

Johan Lundgren, easyJet’s chief executive, said: “We are absolutely committed to a safe restart and are confident this can happen while protecting both the health system and the success of the vaccine programme. 

“We can show through this research that as of 12 April the UK government should be able to place much of Europe in the low-risk green tier because travel from several countries would not affect the UK case rate but most importantly it would have very little impact on hospitalisations in the UK. 

“This is because vaccination is a game changer - the success of the UK vaccine roll out has broken the link between cases and hospitalisation and by May and June we expect the situation to progressively improve because vaccination rates.”