Lancashire's Travel Agents welcome support for tourists
Passengers will no longer need to provide a negative result before flying
Last updated 6th Jan 2022
From Friday morning at 04:00 passengers flying from England will no longer have to take a pre-departure Covid test, the Prime Minister has announced.
Passengers will also no longer need to isolate on their arrival in the UK.
People will however be required to take a lateral flow test on their second day in the country, if it's positive, they will have to take a more accurate PCR test and will be required to isolate.
Instead people can take a lateral flow test on day two, but if the result is positive, a further PCR test will be needed and people will need to isolate.
Travel firms have been calling for expensive PCR tests before travelling to be scrapped in the hope it will encourage more people to travel abroad.
The announcement comes after airlines said passenger testing was making no real impact, with data last week suggesting one in 25 people in England had the virus.
We've been speaking to Kate Holroyd who runs Strawberry Travel in Blackburn.
She's welcoming the move, but says much more needs to be done to rescue the industry:
She told us:
"Booking for foreign holidays are way way down. I'm about 84% down on pre pandemic levels and about 70% down from last November when we had a real boost in people booking foreign holidays as they were feeling more confident.
"Agencies across the country have been forced to stay open to deal with re-patriations, cancellations, re-bookings, re-funds with very little revenue since March 2020 and with very little support from Government so it's important we get back to normal as soon as possible.
"This is normally the time we have a lot of bookings go through, just after Christmas, but they are definitely way way down on what we'd have expected."