As people in England celebrate Super Saturday – aka reopening of pubs, restaurants and many other businesses – the good news keeps coming, with summer holidays potentially back on thanks to air bridges.
Also known as a ‘travel corridor’, an air bridge is a way of allowing tourists from two countries to travel between the destinations without needing to quarantine.
After a few delays in confirming which countries are taking part, the official list was released on Friday 3 July.
Here’s where can you visit without needing to quarantine on your return to England…
Full list of air bridge countries
Travel corridor countries:
- Andorra
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Aruba
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belgium
- Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
- Croatia
- Curaçao
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Dominica
- Faroe Islands
- Fiji
- Finland
- France
- French Polynesia
- Germany
- Greece
- Greenland
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Italy
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macau
- Malta
- Mauritius
- Monaco
- Netherlands
- New Caledonia
- New Zealand*
- Norway
- Poland
- Réunion
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Seychelles
- South Korea
- Spain
- St Barthélemy
- St Kitts and Nevis
- St Lucia
- St Pierre and Miquelon
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turkey
- Vatican City
- Vietnam
British Overseas Territories also exempt
- Akrotiri and Dhekelia
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- British Antarctic Territory
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- British Virgin Islands
- Cayman Islands
- Falkland Islands
- Gibraltar
- Montserrat
- Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan de Cunha
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Turks and Caicos Islands
Ireland is already exempt as part of the common travel area, as are the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. This list may be added to over the coming days.
Information for travel into Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be published in due course by the devolved administrations.
*Ministers failed to guarantee reciprocal arrangements with all the included destinations, meaning some – such as New Zealand – will continue to order English holidaymakers to go into quarantine at the beginning of their trip but you won’t have to quarantine when you get back to England.
When can I go on holiday to these countries?
The new rules for air bridges will come into effect from Friday 10 July.
The travel corridor list was drawn up using a traffic light system, with air bridges granted to countries in the green and amber sections, where the rate of infection is low.
The system was devised by scientists and is based on how countries are managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
Announcing the news on Friday 3 July. Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said: ‘Today marks the next step in carefully reopening our great nation.
‘Whether you are a holidaymaker ready to travel abroad or a business eager to open your doors again, this is good news for British people and great news for British businesses.
‘The entire nation has worked tirelessly to get to this stage, therefore safety must remain our watch word and we will not hesitate to move quickly to protect ourselves if infection rates rise in countries we are reconnecting with.
At the time of writing, these travel corridors only apply to England, as agreements between the other three nations in the UK have not yet been brokered.
MORE : Quarantine scrapped for English travellers returning from Spain, Italy, France and Germany
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