Irish airline Ryanair is set to reinforce its weekly connections between the United Kingdom and Portugal, from September 11th to October 24th, with 14 more flights to Faro every week, the low-cost airline announced today.
The news comes after the inclusion of Portugal in the UK’s list of safe destinations to travel to. Ryanair therefore decided to strengthen air links between the two countries, "introducing 14 additional flights to Faro from 12 UK airports", the company said in a statement this Wednesday.
The airline adds that it has launched a promotion with fares starting at just €19.99 per way, across the UK-Portugal network, for travel in September and October 2020. "This way, it will be even easier for our customers in the UK to book their long-awaited summer getaway in Portugal", says, in the company's Marketing & Digital director, Dara Brady.
Portugal was made part of the list of countries with “travel corridors” with the UK at 4:00 am on the 22nd August, with passengers now being exempted from fulfilling a two-week quarantine upon returning home. The air bridge was announced on August 20 by British authorities, who justified it with the necessary criteria for controlling the pandemic being fulfilled by Portugal.
Portugal thus joined a small group of countries that have been added to the list of "travel corridors" with the United Kingdom, that was first drawn up in mid-July, and which includes Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Brunei and Malaysia.
The quarantine exemption is accompanied by a change in the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against non-essential travel to the included destinations, which is important for travel insurance purposes. Portugal, like Sweden and the United States, had always been outside the British list of safe destinations previously, a decision that the Portuguese Government questioned as it considered it not to be "based on correct facts and figures".
The United Kingdom is the main outbound market for tourists to Portugal, having accounted for around 20 percent of the total in 2019.
