Businessman walks past an Emirates Airbus A380 during the Dubai Airshow on November 18, 2013 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Christopher Furlong | Getty Images
The UK will start accepting vaccinated travelers in the UAE from October 4th, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Wednesday, reopening a popular itinerary after months of deterring UAE people with costly and strict hotel quarantine requirements.
“We will be accepting UAE vaccination certificates as of October 4th after updates to their vaccination app,” Shapps said in a Twitter post. “As a major transportation hub that many UK expats live in, this is great news for reopening international travel, boosting business and reuniting families.”
The news is a relief for many in the desert sheikdom, with a majority of 10 million expatriates, at least 150,000 of whom are British citizens who have been unable to visit their families, since Britain put the United Arab Emirates on a red list for travel last January Has.
“I’m very excited about the idea of having a hassle-free visit to my family and grandpa,” Amy Saraireh, a British national who lives in Dubai, told CNBC in response to the news.
The Red List designation meant that United Arab Emirates travelers – including British citizens and those who were vaccinated in the United Arab Emirates – were staying in a hotel designated by the UK government for 10 days at a personal rate of nearly £ 2,000 Quarantine had to be placed if they wanted to enter the country.
By spring tens of thousands of people living in the United Arab Emirates had signed a petition calling on the British government to change the travel name, citing high Covid vaccination rates in the country. However, the UK government refused to make any changes, citing the UAE’s status as a popular travel hub as a risk, despite the fact that delta variant cases were ruling the UK at the time.
Dubai International Airport was ranked the busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic in 2019, and the Dubai-London route was one of the most popular for Dubai’s flagship airline, Emirates Airline.
The UAE has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates against the coronavirus. The country’s vaccination campaign relied heavily on the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine as questions were raised about the effectiveness of the vaccination compared to that of other countries. At the same time, breakthrough cases have also risen in people vaccinated with American and European vaccinations.
It is unclear whether travelers vaccinated with Sinpoharm fall into the same category as those vaccinated with UK-approved vaccinations such as those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-Astrazeneca.
The change in travel rules will come shortly after the start of Dubai’s flagship Expo 2020, which begins October 1 and has been postponed for a year due to the pandemic. It will take six months, and the emirate hopes to attract 25 million visitors to the event a year and a half after Covid brought global mobility to a standstill.
