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Non-essential travel

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
brightncheerful
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Non-essential travel

#300843

Postby brightncheerful » April 15th, 2020, 1:36 pm

A UK travel agent, whose shops are closed, is currently operating on-line and selling package holidays which involve going abroad by air.

DAK please how a customer is supposed to get to the airport when presumably going on holiday would be considered non-essential travel?
Moderator Message:
Moved from DAK to Airport Lounge (leaving a link) as the discussion broadens. - Chris

Arborbridge
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Re: Non-essential travel

#300845

Postby Arborbridge » April 15th, 2020, 1:43 pm

brightncheerful wrote:A UK travel agent, whose shops are closed, is currently operating on-line and selling package holidays which involve going abroad by air.

DAK please how a customer is supposed to get to the airport when presumably going on holiday would be considered non-essential travel?


When are these holidays being plan for? If some time in the future, presumably people are taking a calculated risk on timing. I've seen various trips dated July onwards.

Arb.

JohnB
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Re: Non-essential travel

#300846

Postby JohnB » April 15th, 2020, 1:46 pm

The flights and holidays will operate under the terms current when they start. If we are still in lockdown and flights are cancelled, the holidaymaker will have discussions with their travel agent, airline and insurer, but I doubt they will get much sympathy if they demand refunds rather than rescheduling. At least this way everyone gets a future order book, and can continue to trade.

john10001
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301465

Postby john10001 » April 18th, 2020, 12:30 am

There are lots of flights that have been continuing to land in the UK from Coronavirus hotspots like Italy, Spain, Iran, New York, and China with no checks on the passengers which I think is pretty criminal and negligent. Boris should have closed the borders to all passenger flights just like Trump did back in January to flights from China and other places. They are telling us to stay home to save lives but are making the situation much worse by allowing the virus to spread further with no border controls.

So, in summary, the Government seems to think it is necessary to allow people to come into the UK many potentially with Coronavirus. They think that is essential travel, so you are petty much good to go wherever you want although taking a holiday right now is a risk because there may be restrictions in place in the country you are going to and travel insurance companies may not cover you for any delays, cancelations, or Coronavirus problems in their policies right now.

I was lucky to have three weeks in Australia at the beginning of March. Halfway through the travel insurance companies put out a note that any travel after I believe it was the second week of March wouldn't be covered by their policies. I had gone out there at the end of Feb.

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Re: Non-essential travel

#301472

Postby JohnB » April 18th, 2020, 6:28 am

If they'd closed the borders when you were in Oz, would you have been happy to be in a hotel for 3 months, away from your family? Once the virus was common in the UK not much point closing the stable door for those with genuine travel needs. Lots of fuss about American arriving to help her pregnant daughter being turned away this week, even though there is no law to support it.

mutantpoodle
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301478

Postby mutantpoodle » April 18th, 2020, 8:15 am

and now China (whether you believe is not the point) is reporting rising infection rates resulting from 'returning' chinese affected victims. without a doubt flights should be restricted and arrivals screened/quarateened etc

at some point soon an MP will actually make a decision instead of doing a 'Corbyn' and sitting on the fence

terminal7
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301602

Postby terminal7 » April 18th, 2020, 5:42 pm

John10001 claims that:

Boris should have closed the borders to all passenger flights just like Trump did back in January to flights from China and other places


Hmm - let's get it straight:

Trump made the decision in late January after accepting the “uniform recommendation of the career public health officials


and

Trump’s order did not fully “close” the U.S. off to China, as he asserts. It temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Americans returning from China were allowed back after screening at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward. But U.S. scientists say screenings can miss people who don’t yet show symptoms of COVID-19; while symptoms often appear within five or six days of exposure, the incubation period is 14 days.


T7

ps what other places?

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Re: Non-essential travel

#301637

Postby Lootman » April 18th, 2020, 7:40 pm

JohnB wrote:If they'd closed the borders when you were in Oz, would you have been happy to be in a hotel for 3 months, away from your family?

When nations close their borders in this way it means that non-nationals cannot enter. Returning nationals are still admitted back.

The worst case would be 14 day quarantine in the UK. This would be enforced if you show symptoms, test positive or have been in contact with those who do. Otherwise it would be 14 days self-quarantine.

Dod101
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301644

Postby Dod101 » April 18th, 2020, 8:14 pm

JohnB wrote:If they'd closed the borders when you were in Oz, would you have been happy to be in a hotel for 3 months, away from your family? Once the virus was common in the UK not much point closing the stable door for those with genuine travel needs. Lots of fuss about American arriving to help her pregnant daughter being turned away this week, even though there is no law to support it.


Frankly it would make no difference whether you were in Oz or 50 miles from your family in the UK. You cannot see them in either event.

Dod

JohnB
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301653

Postby JohnB » April 18th, 2020, 9:00 pm

Returning to your family home is essential travel to me. Sadly when Thailand closed its borders a friend of mine was prevented from returning to his Thai family because he'd not completed the naturalisation process.

If you have 2 countries with similar infection rates, closing borders is pointless. If you are concerned about cooping people on plans, then you should be on tube trains too.

servodude
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301683

Postby servodude » April 19th, 2020, 5:21 am

Lootman wrote:
The worst case would be 14 day quarantine in the UK. This would be enforced if you show symptoms, test positive or have been in contact with those who do. Otherwise it would be 14 days self-quarantine.


But surely that would require that they are checking people at airports?
as far as I am aware they aren't; at least they weren't last week when my parents returned to the UK after being stranded with us in Oz for a few weeks

They flew from Melbourne to Doha then Edinburgh and made their way from the airport to the west of Scotland
- no one checked them for anything

It's a very different story should you arrive as a national in Australia:https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-travellers#travel-to-australia

- sd

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Re: Non-essential travel

#301684

Postby EssDeeAitch » April 19th, 2020, 5:56 am

My brother and sister-in-law returned from America to South Africa some three weeks ago and had to rent am apartment in Cape Town as no onward travel to their home in Johannesburg was permitted (no direct flights to JHB as they caught one of the last flights to SA). Lockdown was extended by three weeks and so they remain in Cape Town, in lockdown.
Travel to their home is not considered essential travel.
SA have also banned the sale of alcohol and tobacco for the duration.
Different countries, different policies. Draconian? Who knows?

JohnB
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Re: Non-essential travel

#301737

Postby JohnB » April 19th, 2020, 12:09 pm

SA having problems having introduced Prohibition. Anyone surprised? https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/bh ... -lockdown/

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Re: Non-essential travel

#305071

Postby barchid » May 2nd, 2020, 1:19 pm

We are currently in lockdown in SA, our flight home was cancelled just after lockdown was announced but before it took place, no chance to rebook.
Fortunately we have a house here and there are far worse places to be locked down in, although it is definitely draconian.
No alcohol is a pain, but I confess to having had large stocks which are significantly depleted after 5 weeks of this !
It is still very difficult to get permission to drive inter province, but it can be done.
Mark you the beach looks even better than ever with no one allowed on it. Quite how the tourism/hospitality trade pick up here after all this is over is a serious issue.

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Re: Non-essential travel

#305073

Postby richfool » May 2nd, 2020, 1:26 pm

Despite the lockdown, I understand the beaches of Kent are still quite busy. Though mainly with one-way, inbound migrant traffic, which is being allowed in regardless of Covid-19 considerations.

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Re: Non-essential travel

#306574

Postby 1nvest » May 8th, 2020, 12:30 am

john10001 wrote:They are telling us to stay home to save lives but are making the situation much worse by allowing the virus to spread further with no border controls.

UK 'lockdown' ... isn't. Rather its controlled aspirations to achieve 'herd immunity' accepting many many deaths in the process, largely ignoring the aged 70+ and care sector patients/workers. Fundamentally a means to stem the over-stretching of the NHS coping with the many many deaths transition.
criminal

Yes, treasonous. The decision to forego quarantine/test/isolate to instead welcome it in and hope for herd immunity was made without any clear evidence that immunity would even occur, and in the knowledge that the WHO were indicating a 3.4% death rate - so potentially north of 2.2 million UK deaths. A roulette spin bet.

Standard protocol is to quarantine, and being a island the UK should have been like Australia and New Zealand - double digits death counts. Instead we've had half the number of the US, despite the US having a 5 times larger population. Scandalous.


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