South Africa and 10 other African nations added to the red list late last month will be removed from 4am on Wednesday (15 December), dampening the spectre of hotel quarantine from all inbound UK travel for the time being.

The government has indicated whether the red list and hotel quarantine has been scrapped for good; when, on 1 November, it removed the seven countries that remained on the list, ministers insisted the regime would be retained for future use.

Less than a month later, South Africa and five other southern African nations were added to the red list with the emergence of the Omicron variant. A further five countries were added in the coming days, including Nigeria.

The UK government has also reintroduced more stringent testing measures, including pre-departure testing and Day 2 testing. Health secretary Sajid Javid told the Commons on Tuesday these "temporary" measures would remain in place. Transport secretary Grant Shapps later added the current testing regime would reviewed in the first week of January.

‘Make or break’

Airlines UK chief executive Tim Alderslade said reducing the red list to zero didn’t go far enough. "If the red list isn’t necessary given Omicron is established here, then neither are the costly emergency testing and isolation measures imposed on even fully vaccinated travellers, which again put us completely at odds with the rest of Europe. It is testing that is the deterrent to travel, not the relatively limited red list.

“Government has admitted the measures are disastrous for the travel sector, and the science says they aren’t now required. The health secretary says he wants to act quickly to remove unnecessary restrictions, and we implore him to make good on this by scrapping testing as soon as possible, otherwise the key Christmas and new year booking period will be undermined."

Alderslade added: "This is make or break for UK aviation, and if government is unable to row back from these restrictions over the new year, it will need to step in with further economic support for a sector that again has been singled out."

Business Travel Association chief Clive Wratten echoed Alderslade’s comments. "This does not go nearly far enough to help the beleaguered travel industry," he said. "The onerous testing requirements are severely hampering business and leisure travel.

"The BTA urges the government to work with the industry to create effective plans for future variants and a tailored package of support as we remain the only sector operating under restrictions.”

WTTC president and chief executive Julia Simpson said: “We support the UK government’s removal of all countries from the nonsensical and harmful red list which, instead of limiting the spread of Covid-19, only punished countries for successfully identifying new strains of the virus.

"However, we are deeply disappointed that expensive Day 2 PCR tests remain in place – it makes absolutely no sense. We should return to the system in place before these measures were introduced, with no pre-departure tests and a simple lateral flow test on arrival in the UK.

"Fully vaccinated people should be able to travel freely and safely.”

‘We need stability’

Gary Lewis, chief executive of The Travel Network Group, said after nearly 20 months of Covid, it was important mindsets inside and outside government shifted to "living with Covid". "Forcing tourists returning to the UK from so-called ‘red list’ countries to isolate in expensive hotels was in no way helping the travel industry get off its knees," said Lewis.

“We fully support testing measures, and we are fully behind safe overseas travel but we have to be pragmatic, Covid is here for the long run. We need our government to work with the travel industry to provide clear and timely direction, workable plans and affordable testing solutions.

"There have been too many poorly-timed, knee-jerk travel impositions, but today we welcome this adjustment to the self-isolation rules."