easyJet adds Gatwick services to holiday hotspots – Spain increases Covid measures

Cut-price carrier easyJet has announced a slew of additional services to be operated from Gatwick airport to some of Europe’s most popular holiday destinations – meanwhile, Spain’s regions have increased restrictions to cap the spread of the virus.

IT is looking extremely unlikely that a return to the norm for holidaymakers to Spain’s Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca will happen this year after all. However, all is not lost as the British government will shortly be looking again at the situation in Spain regards coronavirus data and hopefully, with the new measures put in place by the Spanish government, there just might be time to reverse the quarantine for arrivals to the UK from Spain.

Hundreds of thousands of Brits are poised to rebook holidays to Spain as soon as the quarantine law is lifted and it cannot come quick enough for desperate bar and business owners on Spain’s Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca. Hopefully, the new measures recently introduced across Spain will slow down the spread of the disease. This will not happen ‘overnight’ of course but the effects should soon start to be evident as Covid cases drop. We all sincerely hope it will sooner rather than later, as some of the worlds leading virologists keep repeating: ‘Keep your distance and wash your hands regularly.’

Spain’s regions introduce new measures to stop the spread of the virus.

Andalucia, for example, has extended the minimum social distance for smoking on public roads to two metres; limited to 75 per cent the maximum capacity inside restaurants and hotels, and has also activated the mobile infection alert application ‘RadarCOVID’ which is available for download on Monday – check the Google Play Store for Android users and the App Store for Mac users.

In Castilla La Mancha, for instance, the government published a decree which will come into force today – Sunday. It includes the closure of brothels and the prohibition of the sale of alcohol between 10pm and 8am except in hotels and restaurants.

Extremadura now penalises non-compliance with sanctions of its Public Health Law, which establishes fines of up to €3,000 to €60,000 for serious offences, and from €60,000 to €600,000 for the very serious infractions.

Castilla y León has been one of the fastest communities to act when it comes to implementing the measures, which it reinforced a few days after activating the order through a plan approved on August 21 and which came into effect this Saturday: it extended the use of masks in swimming pools, limited the capacity in establishments to 50 per cent, closed the clubs and banned mass events.

easyJet announces more services across Europe

The budget airline has announced it will increase its services to Spain’s Lanzarote from 10 flights a week to twice daily and that Athens will now be served by an extra four weekly flights from 13 a week to 17 a week.

Flights to Malta will also increase by three flights a week and departures to Naples will increase from 14 a week to 18 a week with triple-daily flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Ali Gayward, UK country manager, said: “We are delighted to be adding additional flights for customers thinking about a late summer holiday this year or looking ahead to next year.”