Now is the summer of our holiday discontent

Travel may be back on the menu but we’ve a long way to go for a post-Covid, post-Brexit equilibrium – expect this summer to be a bit chaotic, writes Simon Calder

Things aren’t quite back to normal yet as far as travel is concerned (PA/Getty)

Exploration, that essential human urge, has been suppressed for two full years. Exactly 24 months elapsed between the Foreign Office warning against all overseas travel, on 17 March 2020, and the relaxation of all UK coronavirus rules for incoming travellers.

Throughout that dismal two years, ministers had imposed dozens of incoherent, irrational and expensive travel restrictions. Every day, the UK’s aviation sector and wider travel industry had protested that the measures were damaging and ineffective. “Set us free,” they begged.

The objections from airlines and holiday firms turned out to be spot on: the Transport Select Committee would later describe the ever-changing UK rules as “opaque, ambiguous and inconsistent”, with hotel quarantine highlighted as completely ineffective.