In this week’s news, four more European countries are reopening their borders to U.S. travelers who can show proof of a complete COVID-19 vaccination and/or a negative test before departure; the European Union lifts its ban on nonessential visits from the U.S., although individual member nations still have the final say; entry to the U.K. remains restricted, although that could change soon; Delta and Virgin Atlantic unveil a new COVID digital health app; United will add flights from SFO to Florida’s Gulf Coast this winter; JetBlue plans to suspend some Bay Area routes later this year, including one that just started; Alaska Airlines kicks off new SFO-Montana flights; Southwest will add two destinations from Sacramento in the months ahead, including one in Hawaii; Delta resumes some front-cabin hot meal service; there’s international route news from JetBlue, a new carrier called Pragusa, France’s La Compagnie, and Brussels Airlines; and the FAA imposes more heavy fines on passengers who violate the rules on in-flight behavior.
Four more European nations — Portugal, Denmark, Germany and Italy — are reopening to U.S. travelers who meet their revised entry requirements. The changes come as the European Union last week agreed to add the United States and several other countries to its COVID “safe travel list,” a move that ends the bloc’s longstanding ban on nonessential trips by Americans to E.U. member nations. However, that doesn’t mean it’s once again open season for all trans-Atlantic vacations. The E.U.’s 27 member governments still have the authority to set their own entry rules, and the E.U. has suggested in the past that they should consider “reciprocity” in deciding what to do — i.e., E.U. officials would like to see the U.S. remove its own entry ban on Europeans, something that is currently under discussion between U.S. and E.U. officials. Nonetheless, some nations had already agreed to open their borders to vaccinated and/or pretested Americans, including France, Spain, Greece, Croatia and Iceland, with Ireland expected to do so soon.
As of last week, according to the U.S. Embassy in Portugal, nonessential travel to that country is now permitted for Americans age 2 or older who show proof of a negative COVID-19 PCR test performed no more than 72 hours before boarding or a rapid antigen test performed within 24 hours of boarding their flight from the U.S. Each traveler must also fill out an online passenger locator card up to 48 hours before departure. “Travelers will also need to present the documentation above to the Border Officers at arrival and no other test or quarantine will be required,” said Visit Portugal, the country’s national tourist office.
While Portugal is requiring a negative COVID test but no proof of vaccination, Denmark has taken the opposite tack. According to the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, “The Danish border remains closed to travelers from the United States who are NOT fully vaccinated, except those who qualify for an exception to the Danish border closures, such as having residency in Denmark or a close family connection.” And those who do qualify for an exception must still take a COVID test before departure and again after arrival and then quarantine for 10 days. But travelers who completed their COVID vaccinations at least 14 days before travel can enter with no testing or quarantine requirements. Denmark has created a web page with all the specific COVID-related requirements for visiting the country.
Germany’s Ministry of the Interior said late this week that starting June 25, its borders will be open to fully vaccinated travelers from non-E.U. nations who are visiting for nonessential purposes including tourism, as long as they completed their shots at least 14 days before arrival. Arriving air travelers will have to show documentation proving their vaccination status and also present a negative COVID test result to their airline before departure from home. The vaccination certificates issued in the U.S. would appear to meet the documentation requirement.
And Italy’s Health Minister said in a Facebook post Friday that effective June 21, it will remove entry restrictions on American visitors who meet “green certificate” requirements with proof they were fully vaccinated or recently tested negative for the coronavirus, although the specifics of the required documentation were not immediately clear. Italy had already been allowing some U.S. travelers into the country for nonessential visits, but only on a select number of specific flights after they provided similar evidence to the airline that they were COVID-free.
Any Americans who do take advantage of the loosening entry restrictions on travel to Europe should keep in mind that the U.S. still requires them to get a negative COVID test result no more than 72 hours before they board their flight home.
The No. 1 European destination for Americans — the United Kingdom — remains off-limits for now and still requires a mandatory 10-day quarantine upon arrival, although there were signs last week that could change soon. (Remember, the U.K. is no longer a member of the European Union, so it sets its own requirements for international travelers.) According to a Reuters report, the U.K.’s Department of Transport said last week it is considering ways that its inbound travel restrictions could be eased for individuals who have completed their COVID vaccinations. That news sent U.K. airline stocks higher in the hope that the country could open just in time for the peak travel months of July and August. However, Britain is also faced with a new surge of COVID cases among its population, especially from the highly contagious Delta variant. That development led the government to delay for another month its plans to fully reopen its domestic economy — and also led some European nations to impose new entry restrictions on U.K. citizens.
When the U.K. does reopen for U.S. travelers, Delta and Virgin Atlantic will be prepared. The two partner airlines said last week they are rolling out a new “digital health credential solution” called Delta FlyReady, initially for use on U.S.-U.K. trips. “The tool will initially help manage testing requirements, but Delta will integrate vaccination credentials into Delta FlyReady later this summer – great news for customers looking to travel to Delta FlyReady-eligible destinations that require proof of vaccination for entry,” the airline said. The app helps customers schedule a COVID test that meets the requirements of their destination and then verifies and stores the test results. Delta has been testing it for more than a month on Atlanta-London Heathrow flights, and Virgin started testing this month of its own version — called Virgin Atlantic FlyReady — on its flights between London and U.S. cities. “Customers traveling on either Delta- or Virgin Atlantic-operated flights will be able to use the tool beginning this summer,” Delta said.
Bay Area travelers will get some new options to Florida’s west coast later this year courtesy of United Airlines. On Dec. 16, the carrier is planning to launch a new route from San Francisco International to Fort Myers on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the gateway to popular vacation destinations like Naples and Sanibel Island. The seasonal service will continue through May 5. Also on Dec. 16, United plans to increase service on its SFO-Tampa route by adding a second daily flight operating as a redeye eastbound. On the same date, United will introduce daily seasonal Fort Myers flights from Los Angeles International. The airline will also begin LAX-Tampa service Oct. 31 with one daily roundtrip.
Although JetBlue just came back to Mineta San Jose this month with daily flights to Boston, it looks like that route isn’t going to last through the winter. According to ThePointsGuy.com, SJC-BOS is one of four Bay Area routes that JetBlue plans to end this fall as it goes through a big network restructuring — although the route is only being suspended for the winter season, from October through April. JetBlue also plans to pull the plug on three routes from San Francisco International in the fall, including service to Austin, Orlando and Raleigh-Durham. Other California routes on JetBlue’s chopping block this fall are Los Angeles-Seattle and Boston-Burbank. Overall, JetBlue will cut a couple dozen routes — mainly from the East Coast to Florida — although an airline official told ThePointsGuy that it plans to add 40 new routes in the coming months and expects its total systemwide capacity in October to be 3% greater than in October 2019 before the pandemic hit.
Alaska Airlines has set a June 19 launch date for service between San Francisco International and Bozeman, Montana, about 75 miles from the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Elsewhere in California, Alaska last week started flying from Redding to its Seattle hub and from San Luis Obispo to Portland. And this winter, Alaska announced, it will offer seasonal service between Palm Springs and Austin from Nov. 19 through April 18.
Last week, we reported that Southwest Airlines will begin new service from Oakland to Bellingham, Washington, on Nov. 7, but that’s only a part of its winter schedule news. In addition to the new Sacramento-Palm Springs flights that Southwest will begin on Oct. 7, the carrier will also supplement its current Sacramento-Honolulu service with a new route from Sacramento to Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island. Those flights will operate four days a week starting Dec. 19. The company also said it will revive several international routes in October and November, including service from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau, Bahamas; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Providenciales, Turks and Caicos; Cancun, Mexico; and Montego Bay, Jamaica, as well as Houston Hobby to Belize City, Belize. Southwest will also introduce one new route, operating daily flights from Chicago O’Hare to Cancun effective Nov. 7.
In other news, Delta has resumed hot meal service for front-cabin Delta One and First Class customers on “select domestic routes,” the airline announced. As of last week, the dining service is available on transcontinental flights between Boston/New York JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. Also introduced last week was a new selection of free snacks for travelers in Delta One, First Class and Delta Comfort Plus seating “on domestic longer-haul flights,” Delta said. Earlier this year, Delta resumed snack and beverage service in all classes on domestic flights.
In international route news this week, JetBlue last week added Los Cabos to its route map, introducing daily flights there from Los Angeles International and New York JFK. The Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier Swoop announced plans to begin service later this year from San Diego to Edmonton, operating three flights a week beginning Oct. 31. Pragusa, a startup airline based in Prague and Dubrovnik, has set a June 22 launch for new nonstop A350 service from LAX to Dubrovnik, Croatia, an historic walled city on the Adriatic coast. The French all-business-class airline La Compagnie has revived its trans-Atlantic service with twice weekly flights between Newark and Paris Orly; frequencies are expected to gradually increase to daily by September, and the airline also expects to launch Newark-Nice service three times a week on July 2, continuing through September. And Brussels Airlines, a member of United’s Star Alliance and a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group, has resumed service to Belgium from both Washington Dulles and New York JFK.
The Federal Aviation Administration has targeted four more airline passengers for heavy fines as part of its ongoing “zero tolerance” policy for in-flight misbehavior. The fines range from $7,500 to $15,500, and all four of them involved passengers who refused to wear a face mask as required by FAA rules. The unruly travelers also committed other infractions, like drinking alcohol they brought on board themselves, yelling profanities at flight crew, and smoking an e-cigarette in the lavatory. The FAA said that by last week, it had received 3,000 reports of unruly passenger behavior — a number many times higher than in any previous year — and that 2,300 of those involved face mask violations.
When it comes to passengers acting up, it might be hard to beat a report last week about an incident on a Southwest Airlines flight from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale. A woman on the flight got into an argument with her male traveling companion and reportedly proceeded to beat him on the head with her cellphone. The phone, not designed to be used in such a manner, exploded and caught fire. Other passengers quickly dumped water on the phone to extinguish the flames, but the pilot made an emergency landing in Pensacola just to be safe, and the combative couple was removed from the aircraft.