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Despite pleas from both travel industry leaders and travelers on each side of the Atlantic, it appears as if the likelihood of a corridor between the U.S. and U.K. is unlikely to happen this summer.
On Monday night, the Financial Times reported that talks of a travel corridor between the 2 countries were at a deadlock and unlikely to succeed in an agreement to open a travel corridor by the top of next month.
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According to the report, U.S. officials are concerned about the increase in cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus within the U.K., also because the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
It’s not just one-sided, either. The FT quoted one U.K. government official as saying that the travel corridor was “not getting to happen soon.” The source went on to mention , “We thought July was the earliest we’d be ready to get something in situ , but now it’s looking more like September.”
Since March 2020, the U.S. has kept its borders closed to non-nationals coming from the U.K. — and other Schengen Area countries. As such, tourism from Europe (including the U.K.) to the U.S. has been completely off the table.
Earlier in the week , U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that reopening the U.S. to EU citizens would be “premature,” despite the EU reopening its borders to americans for tourism earlier this month.
Likewise, the U.S. remains on the U.K.’s medium-risk amber list. Amber designation requires that arriving passengers within the U.K. have a pre-departure test result, also as quarantine for 10 days on arrival. The passenger must pre-book a group of tests before visit combat days two and eight of quarantine.
Related: All 147 countries and territories that are on the UK’s travel amber list
For amber arrivals in England, that quarantine period are often shortened via the country’s Test to Release scheme. After five full days of quarantine, the arrival must take a further PCR test. If it returns a negative result, they will forgo the remainder of their quarantine period, but must still take the day-eight test. In total, a Test to Release arrival will take four COVID-19 tests.
“There is not any reason for the U.S. to be absent from the U.K. green list,” Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss said previously. “This overly cautious approach fails to reap the advantages of the successful vaccination programs in both the U.K. and the U.S.”
Since late last year, there have been calls on the governments of the U.S. and U.K. to determine a travel corridor between the 2 countries. However, with waves of COVID cases on each side of the Atlantic, the corridor has been continuously delayed.
Most recently, there’s been a greater push from the beleaguered travel industries on their respective governments to open the corridor. Earlier this month, airline executives from British Airways, American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, among others, pushed the leaders to determine a corridor at the G7 Summit in Cornwall, England.
Related: Airline executives pressure governments to open UK-US corridor at G7 Summit
The G7 Summit came and went with none news a few corridor. However, U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on 9 June that the 2 had found out a joint “UK/US Taskforce” so as to “help facilitate the reopening of transatlantic travel.”
However, a replacement spike in COVID-19 cases within the U.K. — an outsized number of which being the concerning Delta variant — has slowed those plans. On Monday, the U.K. reported 22,868 new COVID-19 cases, and 116,287 over the past seven days — an almost 70% increase from an equivalent period every week prior.
That said, the country has seen a successful vaccination rollout so far . quite 44 million U.K. citizens have received their first dose of a vaccine — quite 84% of the population. Meanwhile, quite 32 million have received both doses — quite 61% of the population.
But it’s the spike in cases that’s concerning not just American officials, but those round the world. On Monday, Hong Kong classified the U.K. as “extremely high-risk,” choosing to ban all passenger flights from the U.K. Additionally, Portugal, Malta and Spain imposed new requirements for British travelers — specifically those that are unvaccinated.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the EU to mandate all British travelers quarantine for 14 days, also as halting all non-essential travel. However, those plans haven’t advanced.
