Before landing ban: Britain’s last planes arrive – Coronavirus Vienna

The latest Austrian Airlines flight from Great Britain, OS 452 from London, is packed to the last seat. The machine, which was expected to land in Vienna at noon Monday, is AUA’s last flight before the federal government’s landing ban went into effect at midnight.

The 138 passengers on the Airbus A319 can enter according to Austrian regulations, but must go into quarantine.

“Today three more planes from Great Britain will land in Vienna,” airport press spokesman Peter Kleemann said on Monday in response to a request from the APA. In addition to the AUA, two planes from Ryanair and EasyJet were approaching Vienna at noon. A subsequent British Airways flight in the afternoon should be a pure return flight without passengers, he said from Vienna airport. Wizz Air’s night flight has already been canceled, as have all other connections scheduled for Monday.

All passengers arriving from the UK will be asked to take a Covid-19 test directly at the airport upon arrival at Vienna airport. This is free for the interested party. In addition, all arriving travelers must pass a ten-day quarantine, a free trial is only possible after five days, the airport spokesman explained.

Starting Monday at midnight, flights from Great Britain will be banned from landing, initially until January 1, 2021. As AUA spokesman Leonhard Steinmann told the APA, Austrian Airlines will not operate scheduled passenger flights from London. to Vienna during this period. There may be a flight to London on Tuesday, but the return flight would be without passengers. The AUA had flown twice a day between Vienna and London in recent days.

In Germany, where entry from Great Britain stopped a day earlier, on Monday night, 77 passengers who landed from Great Britain on Sunday were trapped, as announced by the German Federal Police. The predominantly Polish passengers were unable to present a negative test upon entering Berlin and are now awaiting a corona test in the transit area. The people would have spent the night in field beds and would be cared for, according to a spokeswoman for the Federal Police in Berlin. Other passengers with German citizenship, a place of residence in Germany or a negative test result were allowed entry.

Following the discovery of a new variant of the coronavirus in the British Isles, numerous countries have issued landing bans for flights from the UK. In the stock market, and especially in the aviation industry, concerns about a mutation that could be more contagious increased uncertainty.

The new travel restrictions “are not good news for airlines and show the risks they still face,” said analyst Daniel Roeska of investment house Bernstein. Shares in Europe were mostly in the red on Monday.