Travellers arriving in England from countries on the banned list will not be landing at Southend or Stansted airports. 

Guidance issued by the Government says travellers can only arrive into one of five airports when new rules come in next week.

Neither Essex airport is on the list.  UK nationals or residents returning from 33 “red list” countries will be required to spend 10 days in a Government-designated hotel from Monday.

Guidance for those who have to quarantine in hotels was published on Thursday and states that anyone with a booking that brings them to a different “port of entry” from February 15 must change it to one of those specified.

The accepted entry points are: Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport, London City Airport, Birmingham Airport and Farnborough Airfield.

The guidance states that leaving the room for exercise will only be allowed with special permission from hotel staff or security and is “not guaranteed”.

The online portal for people coming in to the country to book a quarantine hotel has also gone live, but the site went down shortly after its launch.

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On the Government website it stated that “due to a minor technical issue, the link to the booking portal in this guidance will not be available until later today”.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Tuesday that arriving travellers put in quarantine hotels will be charged £1,750 for their stay.

Passengers arriving into England face fines of up to £10,000 for failing to quarantine, and those who lie on their passenger locator forms face up to 10 years in jail.

The countries on the quarantine list are: 

  • Angola
  • Argentina
  • Bolivia
  • Botswana
  • Brazil
  • Burundi
  • Cape Verde
  • Chile
  • Colombia
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Ecuador
  • Eswatini
  • French Guiana
  • Guyana
  • Lesotho
  • Malawi
  • Mauritius
  • Mozambique
  • Namibia
  • Panama
  • Paraguay
  • Peru
  • Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores)
  • Rwanda
  • Seychelles
  • South Africa
  • Suriname
  • Tanzania
  • United Arab Emirates (UAE)
  • Uruguay
  • Venezuela
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe