Thousands of Britons in South Africa and many more with bookings to travel have had their plans thrown into disarray as flights were suspended on Friday.
The UK government temporarily blocked direct flights as it placed six southern African countries on the red list due to concerns over a new Covid-19 variant. The move comes at the start of peak holiday season, with airlines having booked tens of thousands of passengers to fly before Christmas.
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, which operate the only direct flights to the region, linking London with Johannesburg and Cape Town, were forced to cancel flights landing in the UK before 4am Sunday. Both were urgently reviewing schedules to decide whether services will remain viable after the ban lifts.
British and Irish nationals on flights landing after 4am Sunday will have to go into hotel quarantine, while foreign nationals will be barred from entry under red list rules.
Virgin said it had cancelled holiday packages for the next month, while BA has so far only yet confirmed that flights will operate from South Africa on Monday evening.
BA and Virgin said they would contact customers who had booked flights. A BA spokesperson said it was “working through plans for our customers and colleagues currently in South Africa and those due to travel from the UK in the coming days”.
Virgin operates a daily return service from Heathrow to Johannesburg and was due to commence Cape Town services from 17 December, with sales taking off since restrictions were eased. The airline reported earlier this month it had taken 32,000 bookings on the routes in October, mainly for travel ahead of Christmas.
A spokesperson said the airline would allow all customers to rebook ahead of possible travel although some flights would likely go ahead for repatriations, cargo, and for those prepared to enter hotel quarantine. Virgin has cancelled, and stopped selling, all package holidays to the country until 6 January.
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