A HOLIDAYMAKER from Northwich was informed he would have to quarantine for two weeks only hours before he was due to fly home.

Ben Kershaw had only recently booked to fly out to Tenerife with his partner after British lockdown and holiday restrictions were lifted.

But only eight hours before he was due to fly home on Sunday, July 28, he found out the Government had reimposed a mandatory two-week quarantine for British holidaymakers after the ‘air bridge’ between the UK and Spain was cancelled.

And he says that at no point did he feel at risk of coronavirus due to stringent restrictions in force on the Spanish island.

“We booked the holiday as soon as quarantine restrictions were lifted,” said Ben, who is due to end his quarantine this weekend.

“A lot of people did the same, thinking that after being locked down for so long, it was time to go for a holiday.

“Our holiday was cancelled twice, then our flights were moved back a day, and it was eight hours before our flight home that the quarantine was reinstated.

“The sad thing was that the whole mood changed on the island after the measures were reintroduced, and our hotel had 60 per cent of bookings cancelled within an hour.

“They take it a lot more seriously over there. There is a 100€ fine for not wearing masks in the street or indoors and you couldn’t have felt safer in the hotel and in restaurants.

Northwich Guardian:

“It is 100 per cent more lax over here.”

Luckily for Ben, who works in recruitment and owns his own company, the impact of returning and having to quarantine was not as severe as for those in other lines of work.

“I had lots of meetings booked for work, so it has caused a bit of a headache working around it, but owning my own company gives a bit of leeway,” he added.

“We’ve only recently come out of lockdown, so we are used to working from home, but it’s still not ideal.

“We spoke to people in the airport whose bosses couldn’t give them paid time off to quarantine and they weren’t in a type of job where they could work from home.

“To have saved up for a holiday which was cut short and then have to stay at home for two weeks unpaid will have put more people into financial worry.

“Flights were being cancelled within hours and there was no notice that the quarantine would be reintroduced. If we had known, we would’ve cancelled the holiday beforehand.”