Phuket opening: only final Cabinet approval to go

[Dodger]

Qatar has announced 4 flights/week from Doha to Phuket (with connectivity in the Middle east, Europe, and USA), but has not mentioned anything about flights originating in the UK. I'm not sure where you guys are getting this.

[goji]

Qatar has announced 4 flights/week from Doha to Phuket (with connectivity in the Middle east, Europe, and USA), but has not mentioned anything about flights originating in the UK. I'm not sure where you guys are getting this.

As Sen Yai has already pointed out, Qatar is on the UK "red list". This means anyone returning to the UK has to do 10 days "porridge" in a quarantine hotel. Costing something like £1750.
So it would be a terrible choice for a return flight to the UK. Possibly OK outbound, assuming you stay in Thailand for more than 14 days. I avoid flying via that region, for various reasons.

[Dodger]

Qatar is on the UK "red list". This means anyone returning to the UK has to do 10 days "porridge" in a quarantine hotel. Costing something like £1750.
So it would be a terrible choice for a return flight to the UK. Possibly OK outbound, assuming you stay in Thailand for more than 14 days. I avoid flying via that region, for various reasons.

That sounds logical.

[goji]

That sounds logical.

The UK has pointless quarantine measures which inconvenience travelers, but have failed to keep out any of the major covid variants. £1750 for 10 days in a basic hotel is also daylight robbery. In the covid era, it's possible to book rooms in a reputable hotel chain for £35 to 45 per night & 3 crap meals per day ought to cost under £30.
Quarantine is pointless when we have to allow free movement of trucker drivers in & out of the country. .

Thailand also has quarantine measures with inconvenience travelers and have only managed do delay the import of covid. Having quarantine for tourists is pointless if the government will not deploy some of the 500,000 army personnel to properly seal land borders and stop illegal immigration, which is another covid transmission route.

[Sen Yai]

Qatar has announced 4 flights/week from Doha to Phuket (with connectivity in the Middle east, Europe, and USA), but has not mentioned anything about flights originating in the UK. I'm not sure where you guys are getting this.

It all depends on which end of the telescope you are viewing this through. Here's some marketing (from QR website) aimed at Brits, travelling from LHR and priced in GBP. For intended readers of these adverts, QR are offering good value high quality flights - opening up Phuket!

Qatar Airways business model (like Emirates and Etihad) is based on the 'hub and spoke' principle whereby they collect passengers from as many destinations west of Qatar (mostly Europe) as possible and feed them into Doha. Given sufficient frequency of daily flights, they can (could?) match transit passengers with flights to destinations east of Doha (mostly Asia) with acceptable connection times of generally only a few hours (sometime only 50 mins!). Consequently, customers (like those in UK) could be enticed by good value fares to a wide range of exotic destinations. Of course all these journeys are really two quite separate fights, but are marketed as flights from 'home' to desirable destinations!

.......begs the question, do they know something that we don't about a coming change in UK government policy, otherwise why start up again with four flights per week.

Certainly looking at the Covid figures for Qatar, 130 new cases per day, it's hard to make the case for it being on the red list.....

Governments (not just UK) need to recognize the fast changing patterns of the pandemic and adjust their travel restriction policies more quickly. Earlier this year Qatar was indeed struggling with high transmission rates but their figures are now insignificant in comparison to the UK's own rates of 7k+. However, unless QR do know of imminent rule changes (dropping Qatar from the UK Red list) then it is rather disingenuous of them to promote flights from/to UK at this time.