NEWS: Travel corridor changes, BA no short haul at Gatwick until Spring 2021? & more Qatar routes

Travel corridor additions & removals

This week’s announcement from Grant Shapps had a few surprises. Denmark which has been in the red zone for a while (above 20 per 100,000 over the last 7 days) was not removed from the list. However, Slovenia and Guadeloupe were removed from the Travel Corridor list. This means if you arrive in the UK from these destinations after 4am Saturday 19 September you will need to self isolate for 14 days. 

The good news is that he added Thailand and Singapore to the travel corridor list. The bad news is that we can’t visit either (except for very specific exceptions) although both have been looking at ways to reopen safely so hopefully they will reopen in the new year, if not before. 

BA may not return short haul to Gatwick until Spring 2021?

British Airways had previously said that they would not return to Gatwick for short-haul until 9 November 20. Today they have started sending out notifications to customers that have bookings for short-haul flights from Gatwick after the 9 November up until the end of March. The email says that they have been changed onto a flight from Heathrow instead. This is effectively the whole winter season and given the current situation with hokey pokey quarantine rules I would not be the slightest surprised if BA do not return until summer schedules 2021. There has been no official announcement yet but it is unlikely that they would only move some short haul flights too Heathrow and leave others at Gatwick. I would expect to hear officially in the next few days. 

This would mean it is also unlikely that BA will move back to the South Terminal any time soon. 

 

More Qatar routes

Qatar’s network has never fallen below 30 destinations since the onset of the pandemic. They have now announced the resumption of services to Amman, Entebbe, Hanoi, Seychelles, Windhoek and Yerevan and the launch of new flights to Accra which will see the airline’s global network more than triple in size by mid-October. 

The airline’s variety of fuel-efficient efficient aircraft and strategic network management has enabled it to quickly resume flights and expand services in line with passenger demand. The following destinations are planned to resume flights or increase frequencies:

• Amman (daily flights started 15 September, carriage of passengers limited to AMM-DOH only)
• Clark (increasing to nine weekly flights from 20 September)
• Copenhagen (increasing to 10 weekly flights from 15 October)
• Dhaka (increased to seven weekly flights from 19 September)
• Entebbe (three weekly flights starting 2 October)
• Hanoi (four weekly flights starting 3 October)
• Madrid (increasing to 10 weekly flights from 1 October)
• Manchester (increasing to 17 weekly flights from 15 October)
• Manila (increasing to 17 weekly flights from 2 October)
• Seychelles (three weekly flights starting 15 October)
• Stockholm (increasing to 10 weekly flights from 15 October)
• Windhoek (three weekly flights starting 15 October)
• Yerevan (five weekly flights started 15 September, increasing to daily from 5 October)

Sadly due to Qatar being not on the travel corridor list, even if you travel to a country that is, you will still have to self isolate on your return to the UK due to connecting in Qatar.