Németh Debs
Jul 20, 20212 min
Palma Airport in Majorca was rammed full of British tourists trying to beat the quarantine deadline on Sunday (Picture: GTres/Splash News)
Holidaymakers have paid as much as £1,000 to get back to the UK before the quarantine deadline.
Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca were taken off the green list and put on amber as of 4am this morning.
Any traveler returning from the Balearic Islands who hasn’t been fully vaccinated will now have to stay at home for 10 days or risk a £1,000 fine.
It has left hundreds of tourists – who only found out about the travel update on Wednesday – paying huge sums to get back in time.
Some tourists at Palma Airport in Majorca said were paying hundreds of pounds extra for Covid tests and flights to get back before the 4am deadline.
Miller Fitzgerald and his son Cameron, from Leicestershire, paid more than £1,000 to return early from their holiday.
‘Cameron has had his first jab but has his driving test booked so didn’t want to quarantine,’ the father told The Times.
‘I paid £600 for the tests and £400 for the flights. I wasn’t too surprised that it changed because it’s been pretty chaotic. So we just had to be ready. There’s no doubt that what should have been a cheap holiday hasn’t been.’
Many of the tourists making the mad dash home will be young adults who are still waiting to have their second jab.
Thousands will have been forced to abandon their plans for a holiday following the travel update, but some Ibiza-bound travelers were spotted at Glasgow Airport this morning.
Queues were seen outside testing centres in recent days as tourists hoped to get the negative swab they need to board a plane.
Ministers also dashed hopes for Brits hoping to hop over the Channel for a summer break in France.
On Friday, the government made the shock announcement that travel restrictions on France would be tightened.