AND THEY'RE BACK!
Brit holidaymakers arrive in Majorca – as number of flights to island triples in one day
BRITISH holidaymakers have arrived in Majorca for a sunshine break.
Planes touched down from Manchester and London carrying a mixture of holidaymakers and expat property owners, returning for the first time since the ease of the Covid virus lockdown in Spain.
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Visitors arriving from the UK were among 210 flights to Palma airport today.
The number of flights almost tripled - yesterday there were just 85 aircraft flying into the Spanish island,
EuroWeekly News has reported that 66 of the flights today were domestic and a further 144 were coming from or going to other destinations in Europe.
They have forecast for 300 flights a day in August, as confidence in travel resumes.
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Brits will be able to enjoy empty beaches in July for the first time in decades - as the vast majority of holidaymakers are still at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Some of the travellers arriving at the airport this afternoon headed straight to the seaside.
There are only a handful of tourists in Majorca compared to normal at this time of year.
As a result, large numbers of bars and restaurants on the island have also stayed shut, with more than a third expected to stay closed for the whole tourist season.
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The CAEB Mallorca, Bars, Cafes and Restaurants Association warned that some will never be able to open again due to the coronavirus pandemic.
While Spain has eased its lockdown much faster than in the UK, there are still a number of rules that they must stick to in public.
Face masks must be worn on the street and inside public places where it is impossible to keep two metres apart from each other.
Majorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands, was at the centre of a pilot scheme involving German holidaymakers which got off the ground a week before Spain re-opened to tourists properly last week
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But sunseekers could be turned away from Majorca and Ibiza again if there's a big coronavirus outbreak, health chiefs in the Balearic Islands warn.
Around 20 outbreaks of coronavirus have been reported in more than 10 parts of Spain a week after it re-opened borders to international tourism.
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Regional government health minister Patricia Gomez, whose remit also covers Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera, said yesterday a new shutdown could not be ruled out.
She told respected Majorcan newspaper Diario de Mallorca: “We will definitely have small outbreaks of Covid-19.
“If we have an important outbreak among tourists this summer, we may have to consider closing the island again.”