Summer holidays may not be off the cards after all, as England's health secretary today admitted he's feeling "a little more optimistic" about the prospect.
Speaking to This Morning about the UK Government's plans for restarting travel, Matt Hancock said the idea of foreign travel shouldn't be ruled out altogether, despite his earlier statements.
“I am a little more optimistic than I was about being able to get some foreign travel back up," he said.
"So that is one of the things that has gone a bit better than expected… We’ll keep that under review, that’s the next thing I'm going to do… We’ll try to do everything we can to allow the relaxation of freedoms, but we’ll only do that when it is safe to do so.”
Pushed on whether it's out of the question for people to hope to have a July foreign holiday this year, he said: “I absolutely wouldn’t rule it out. We’ve got to proceed cautiously… I definitely wouldn’t say no and I know how important it is for so many people.”
But the health secretary couldn't say whether the government would rethink plans to quarantine those coming from overseas.
He said: “We have been looking very carefully at this… My heart goes out to those working in airlines for whom this has just been an absolutely enormous impact."
As it stands, the UK will impose a 14-day quarantine requirement for anyone arriving in the country from June 8, but the rules will be reviewed every three weeks.
The update comes as several airlines have announced they plan to resume flights to major travel hotspots this summer.
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EasyJet has said it will restart flights from June 15 with a mainly domestic schedule in the UK and France.
Competitor Ryanair will restart travel to "key holiday airports" across Europe roughly two weeks later.
British Airways is due to launch "a meaningful return to service in July", while Jet2.com is also to resume its flight programme at the beginning of that month.
Meanwhile, tour operator Tui has extended the suspension of its holidays until at least the end of June.
The firm has also cancelled its Marella Cruises sailings up to July 30.
