Scenes from Queen Street Saturday 12:08 - Hobo in flip flops rummaging through bin on an overly bright and hot sunny day... Posted by Picasa

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Did the UK Government kill the travel industry?

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A recent flight to Nice has highlighted that not many people are flying. In the middle of August, on a Friday night, shops and restaurants were closed at Heathrow. You didn’t have to worry about finding a seat to relax. There were plenty of them, even with the social distancing boards in place. While it was lovely to have so much personal space, on the other hand, you couldn’t help but wonder about the future of travel, particularly when airports in Europe don’t seem to be as burdened by such rules. And when none of this “Covid theatre” prevented the delta variant from entering the UK in the first place. Perhaps people are voting with their feet due to the complex rules and scenarios. Leaving the UK for any trip seems to be determined to confuse the confound the most seasoned traveller.  Despite the pages and pages of guidance on the government website, nothing is straightforward. Perhaps there are so many scenarios they attempt to cover that anything is possible.  There are t...
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Chaos and Control: Taking back control part 1

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"Kastam" is licensed under CC0 1.0 For those sitting out European holidays overseas at the moment as either the places you want to visit have quarantine or you'll have to quarantine on your return, there will be a little surprise in store. Travelling now as a third country, you'll find your British Passport doesn't get you as far (or as quickly) to your destination that it once did. And that's not due to the Covid checks. While passport control will take less than a minute to check your certified Covid test result, what will take longer is the manual entry of your passport details into systems. What used to be a relatively quick check and waive through now takes so much longer.  Arriving at Bari airport last week on a flight barely two-thirds full, we had to wait almost an hour. Covid checks contributed to some of the delays as people haggled over their test results - or lack of them). But the most significant delay was the need to type everyone's passpo...
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Flying under a cloud: Summer holidays during a pandemic

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A small bag of hand gel and a wipe can bring much joy in 2020... It seems to be almost socially unacceptable to be flying at the moment. Or at least sharing the experience that you've flown somewhere given many people are either unable to unwilling to do so in this twin economic and health crisis. Countries are closed without quarantine, flights are non-existent, airlines are going under. But if you are flying at the moment or want to know what it was like, here are two experiences. Flying may not be returning to 2019 levels for many years. But the disappearance of crowded airports, long flight delays and ever-changing rules about what could and couldn't get on board is a welcome change this summer.  Before 2020 a trip during the summer meant: Sardine lounges . Penned in crowded airports and terminals with poor ventilation and little room to sit.  There you would stand around gates with the hot, sweaty and slightly flustered hordes travelling with you.  Security theatre ....
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