Ryanair boss: Most Brits will ignore quarantine rules and write 'Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney Street' on arrival card
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has branded 14-day quarantine rules “useless”, saying most holidaymakers will get away with writing things like ‘Mickey Mouse, 1 Walt Disney Street’ on their arrival cards.
O’Leary said the “unimplementable” rules for people arriving in the UK would be quietly dropped because authorities can’t enforce them.
The government has announced that from June 8 anyone entering the UK will have to self-isolate for two weeks and will have to give details of where they plan to do so.
But O’Leary told The Mail on Sunday: “You can fill up your arrival card as Mickey Mouse, 1 Walt Disney Street, London SW22 – they’ll take the cards and off you go. So it’s a complete shambles.
“The Home Office, Border Force and police will all tell you quietly, and off the record, it [quarantine] is completely unimplementable.”
The Ryanair boss has been an outspoken critic of the government’s quarantine plans.
Earlier this month, he told the BBC the plan was “idiotic and unimplementable”, saying: “You don’t have enough police in the UK to implement a two-week lockdown.
“And what’s really worrying is that a two-week lockdown has no medical or scientific basis to it in any event.
“If you really want to do something that’s effective – wear masks.”
Following the announcement about mandatory quarantine for people arriving in the UK, dozens of travel companies called on the home secretary to scrap the plans.
More than 70 company heads co-signed a letter to Priti Patel accusing the government of being “woefully slow” in its support for the travel industry.
The letter said: “The very last thing the travel industry needs is a mandatory quarantine imposed on all arriving passengers which will deter foreign visitors from coming here, deter UK visitors from travelling abroad and, most likely, cause other countries to impose reciprocal quarantine requirements on British visitors, as France has already announced.”
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