Doncaster airport bosses welcome plans to scrap COVID tests for fully vaccinated travellers

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced COVID-19 tests for fully vaccinated travellers arriving in England are to be scrapped from February 11.

Under current rules, travellers arriving in England are required to stay at their declared address until they log a negative lateral flow or PCR test result on a pre-booked system.

Grant Shapps said: “We promised we wouldn’t keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary and it’s obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness, and we’re therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people.

“Not only making travel much easier but also, of course, saving about £100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, to carriers and the vital tourism sector for the spring and the summer seasons.”

Eligible fully-vaccinated passengers arriving in the UK will “no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test” from 4am on February 11, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told MPs.

Making a travel update statement in the Commons, he said: “Our international travel regime will also now be liberalised as part our efforts to ensure that 2022 is the year in which restrictions on travel, on lockdowns and limits on people’s lives are firmly placed in the past.

“From 4am on February 11, and in time for the half-term break, eligible fully-vaccinated passengers arriving in the UK will no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test.

“That means that after months of pre-departure testing, post-arrival testing, self-isolation, additional expense, all that fully vaccinated people will now have to do, when they travel to the UK, is to verify their status via a passenger locator form.”

A spokesman for Doncaster Sheffield Airport, said:

“It’s great news to see restrictions lifting on international travel with the removal of testing for fully vaccinated passengers and a proportionate approach for non-vaccinated passengers.

“These changes come just in time for the half-term holidays and we’re sure that families will want to take advantage of the relaxation of restrictions by getting away for a well-earned break at one of the 43 destinations available from Doncaster Sheffield Airport.”