In one of the most promising signs that a summer holiday on the Continent is in reach for Britons, Tui has announced it will be serving eight short-haul destinations from July 11.

The UK’s largest tour operator plans to fly customers from Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham – with new safety measures onboard – to the Greek islands of Crete, Rhodes, Kos and Corfu; Spain’s Canary Islands Tenerife and Lanzarote, and Majorca and Ibiza in the Balearics.

Commercial director Richard Sofer expressed confidence that the UK will have lifted the 14-day quarantine currently imposed on all arrivals by this date.

“Due to the size of our organization we’ve been able to have a presence in each of those government conversations through our aviation team or through the senior members of the UK business,” he said. “We’re well-informed of where those discussions are.

“Obviously many of those conversations are confidential but that gives us great confidence to open up a small program to a couple of really key countries, eight key gateways for us.

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Read more: The Independent