Following the removal of Portugal from the UK green list, there are now virtually no viable destinations that UK travellers can visit without mandatory quarantine upon arrival back in the country. This has meant that demand for flights in the UK has dropped significantly, while more relaxed rules in Europe have allowed travel to continue on the continent.

In a statement easyJet said: “With 50 percent of easyJet’s flying intra-Europe, we are seeing European governments are progressively opening up using frameworks in place which enable travel and much of it restriction-free.

“And this relaxation and removal of restrictions has sparked a positive booking momentum across Europe with the majority of our bookings showing a strong swing towards Europe when in normal times it would be a 50/50 split with the UK.

“We are fortunate that we are able to redirect flying on our European network, for example we have moved capacity from the UK to Palma to Berlin-Palma flying, and over the past week we have added 150,000 further seats to our intra-European network.

“Europe is demonstrating that a safe reopening of travel is possible and so we continue to urge the UK Government to do so urgently so our customers can reunite with loved ones or travel for a much-needed break.”