Portugal: Holidaymakers share experience of getting back to UK

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Britons are piling onto planes from Portugal in order to get back to the UK before 4.00am on Tuesday morning as the country is dropped down to the amber list for travel. From tomorrow morning all revellers arriving from the country will be forced to self-isolate for 10 days and take two PCR tests. But the airports are crawling with Brits desperate to get home while holidaymakers are saying it is becoming increasingly difficult to get pre-departure Covid tests with one passenger describing it as a “nightmare” situation.

One holidaymaker told LBC: “We did all the necessary precautions before we went.

“We booked the flights a week ago, we didn’t book the hotel until we had the Covid test.

“We flew out on Thursday, we landed, got to the hotel, laid down on the sun bed…

“It goes amber!”

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He added: “We immediately scrambled to get flights then as we were booking on the app, the price of EasyJet flights are going up and up by the second!”

While another passenger said: “It was just crazy.

“There were loads of people who missed their flight just because of the passenger locator form.

“It could be easier – I’m not sure why it so complicated like that.”

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But another passenger was more chipper, he said: “The flights to the UK were obiviously pretty busy, but nothing too crazy to be honest.

“We were quite lucky becuase we had our tickets booked for today.

“My son goes back to school tomorrow so we were quite lucky in that case.

“We saw the news that it was going to go on amber so the obvious thing was ‘when does the rules come into force, does it affect us’ so yes a little bit concerning.”

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Portugal was plunged onto the amber list of countries last Thursday as the government U-turned on its decision to put the country on the un-restricted green list.

From 04:00am on Tuesday Portugal will be dropped from the green list meaning holiday makers will be forced to self-isolate for 10 days and take two PCR tests.

It comes as the Department for Transport reported double the number of positive Covid cases in Portugal in the last three weeks.

Dozens of flights are expected to jet in from Protugal as Britons dash to get home to avoid isolating.

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