The UAE is set to remain on the UK’s red list for air travel indefinitely because Dubai and Abu Dhabi are key transit hubs, the country’s transport secretary has suggested.
Grant Shapps told an online ConservativeHome event that the UAE’s status as a global hub meant UK health authorities could not be certain about travellers’ origins.
Shapps was quoted by UK media as saying the problem was people connecting from other countries at Dubai airport, and to a lesser extent Abu Dhabi.
“We are not restricting UAE because of levels of coronavirus in the UAE,” he said. “The specific issue in the UAE is one of transit. It’s because they are a major transit hub.”
His comments come after Robert Boyle, former strategy chief at British Airways and founder of GridPoint Consulting, said in new research that the UAE was likely to be given an amber rating in the UK’s traffic light system to reopen air travel for the same reason.
He said only eight countries may be declared as safe for foreign holidays abroad this summer while the UAE is likely to be classified as “amber” – meaning quarantine will be required – despite its successful vaccination programme.
“Perhaps also the UK might allow countries which are only amber on the case rate to be green if they have very high vaccination rates. That might also bring in Malta and in theory the UAE too. However, the latter’s role as a transit hub where people from countries which have variants of concern mingle may rule it out,” Boyle said.
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According to him, only Ireland, Iceland, the US and Malta could all be placed on the green list for foreign travel, under the traffic lights system – along with Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Gibraltar.
Dubai airport is the world’s biggest hub for transit passengers. The Independent has asked the airport operator for a response.
In response, Emirates president, Sir Tim Clark, told The Independent: “Leaving us on the red list for reasons of transit doesn’t make any sense because [passengers] can just go through other hubs.
“It compromises our United Kingdom operation for Emirates. It’s a real pity if they keep us on the red list.”
Going abroad on holiday is currently illegal in England but rules are set to be relaxed from May 17 if the road map out of coronavirus lockdown continues on schedule.
Boyle’s report ranked 52 countries based on vaccination rates, infection levels, variants and capacity for genome sequencing – the four criteria used by the UK government.
Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised UK travellers not to book foreign holidays in a move that was a blow to the UAE tourism industry.
Johnson said the international travel ban might not be lifted on the previously mooted date of May 17 due to the risk of importing Covid-19 variants.
According to a World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) spokesperson, there will be a strong pent-up demand for both business and leisure travel between the UK and the UAE once the current travel ban is lifted.
In the first half of November 2020, when the UAE was briefly added to Britain’s list of quarantine-free countries, flight bookings from the UK to Dubai rose to over 50 percent of the levels in the equivalent period in 2019, according to ForwardKeys data.
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