Belgian tour operator TUI will not offer trips to red zones in the coming weeks, its spokesman Piet Demeyere said Wednesday, despite the fact that the bans to these areas will be lifted from Friday.
Travel to red zones will now become strongly discouraged rather than banned, though it will still be compulsory to undergo a test and to be quarantined on return.
"As long as this compulsory two-week quarantine continues for these regions, there is little point in launching an offer," Demeyere said.
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“The tenor here is that, for the traveller, it is ultimately the practical consequences of a red zone that matter, not its definition,” he underlined.
"Even if travel to a country or region is only strongly discouraged, it is only logical that a traveller would prefer not to go there and that we would have to cancel their trip," the spokesman pointed out. "This creates too dubious a basis for TUI to operate flights with reasonable occupancy.”
The tour operator still operates flights to and from Alicante and Malaga in Spain but, according to Piet Demeyere, they are mainly used by Belgians who want to return home and there are no plans to expand this range of flights.
The Brussels Times
