EasyJet has announced it will be back in the skies, Covid-19 ‘prepped and ready’, from June 15. However it won’t be reopening routes to the Algarve at this point – nor connections between Portugal and the UK.
The only direct flights into Portugal will be run from Geneva (Switzerland), to both Porto and Lisbon airports.
But there will be numerous flights from the UK into France, thus anyone ‘creative’ should be able to work a route into Portugal without too much trouble.
Says EasyJet’s chief executive Johan Lundgren, the reduced flight schedules chosen to start with have been “carefully planned” – the only international service from the UK being a flight from Gatwick to Nice, on the French Riviera.
There are also flights to Barcelona in Spain – but again, only from Geneva.
All passengers and crew will be required to use face masks. The 189 routes opening (many of them simply internal UK flights), will involve strict measures of hygiene and physical distancing to reduce all possible threats of contagion.
Stresses easyJet’s press release on the reopening, “easyJet’s planes are equipped with the most advanced air filtration technology using ‘high efficiency’ (HEPA) filters with the capacity to capture 99.97% of contaminants transported by the air, including viruses and bacterias. These filters are the same as those used in hospitals. It is through them that the air in the cabin is constantly filtered and substituted with fresh air introduced into the cabin every 3-4 minutes”.
For more information on the first routes to reopen, see the company website: easyjet.com.
Meantime, low-cost ‘competitor’ Wizz Air has been running flights from London’s Luton airport into Portugal (both Porto and Lisbon airports) since May 1 (click here). Current prices are ranging from around €60 one-way to as much as €86.99.
