Revealed: The top flight destinations of post-lockdown Britain

British holidaymakers are overwhelmingly flocking to Spain for their post-lockdown getaway - but tracking data also reveals hundreds of flights to Portugal, despite lacking an air bridge with the UK.

Over 1,200 flights touched down in Spanish holiday destinations from UK airports in the first two weeks following Sunday, July 4, according to data seen by The Telegraph from plane tracking service FlightRadar24, as deals struck by the Government removing the need to quarantine came into effect.

On average 88 flights a day departed to Spain from the UK in the fortnight following July 4, with top destinations including Malaga with 212 flights, or 15 flights a day, and Alicante with 184 flights, or 13 flights a day.

The data comes as Spanish getaways for Brits were cast into doubt this week ahead of the UK government reviewing its list of air bridges, with fears the country would be removed amid local spikes of Covid-19, such as Barcelona, where 106 flights have touched down from the UK since the opening of air bridges.

Some Spanish destinations have struggled with the influx of holidaymakers since July 4, with Mallorca, which received 180 flights or 13 a day from the UK, forced to close its party strip in Magaluf following complaints from residents about tourists failing to follow social distancing guidelines.

Yesterday, the town of Totana in the region of Murcia was the first to be placed in a ‘Phase One’ lockdown after a spike in cases linked to a nightclub. Catalonia and Malaga have also seen recent rises.

Brits travelling to the south of Spain and Balearic islands - some of the most popular destinations in recent weeks - should avoid the areas where cases have begun to surge.

The second, third and fourth most popular destinations were Italy, Ireland and Poland with 388, 338 and 310 flights respectively - countries which are also covered by the UK’s air bridge arrangements but together are still dwarfed by the total flights to Spain.

The vast majority of flights detected by FlightRadar24 to these three countries - over 80 per cent - were those with the flight code of Irish budget airline RyanAir, which had initially planned to resume flights on 1 July but then restarted early on June 21.

Dublin’s airport saw the highest total of inbound UK flights of all airports at 244, or 17 a day.

However the fifth most popular country for British holidaymakers according to the FlightRadar24 data was Portugal even though the country lacks an air bridge with the UK - above France and Germany.

There were 288 flights to Portugal, equivalent to 21 a day, since July 4, with over half touching down in Faro on the country’s southern coast, compared to 280 to France -  20 a day.

Even though Portugal has not required Brits to quarantine when they arrive, its omission from the UK government’s air bridge list  means those returning from the country have to quarantine for two weeks.

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, announced on Friday that the Government has rejected Portugal’s bid to be added to a “safe” list of 74 countries and territories exempt from UK quarantine.

The Telegraph learned this week that the UK government is considering regional air bridges to the country, as vocal critics like president of Turismo de Portugal, Luis Araújo, condemned the decision to leave Portugal off the list of countries exempt from UK quarantine rules.

Top carriers to Portugal include RyanAir with 161 flights from the UK since July 4 but also EasyJet and Wizz.

For both airlines Portugal was their most popular destination since July 4 - excluding Spain - with 56 and 28 flights respectively, according to the FlightRadar24 data.

A spokesperson for EasyJet said: “These are the destinations that are proving popular over the summer as we would normally see for holidaymakers this time of year, with Palma, Alicante and Malaga in Spain currently among the favourite destinations for our UK customers.

"Flights to Portugal are also where we are seeing demand and we know that this is typically a destination enjoyed by second home owners or those visiting friends and family.

“A month ago we were only flying a very small number of flights per day so the increase is now considerable, there are now five times more customers booked for travel versus a month ago.”

By contrast, some airlines have ruled out shuttling Brits to destinations that lack an air bridge.

“We know how important and exciting a holiday can be, which is why we’ve created the TUI Holiday Promise,” said a spokesperson for TUI UK.

“We won’t be taking customers to any destinations where we know they will need to self-isolate when they arrive or when they return home.”

Outbound flights from the UK are still far smaller in volume when compared to last year, even in the case of Spain, the flight total of which only represents 21 per cent of the flights to the country from the UK in the same period in 2019.

The biggest day in terms of total outbound flights from the UK since July 4 was the final day for which data was available - Friday, July 17.

How flights changed over lockdown

Flights departing the UK fell dramatically as the pandemic began to take hold of the country, the FlightRadar24 data also shows.

The drop off in outbound flights departing airports across the country began after March 17, when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised against all non-essential travel, with outbound flights promptly falling by 86 per cent in the month that followed.

Britain’s skies were not completely empty during lockdown, however, as cargo, military and private charter flights still took place. In May the Home Office revealed to Parliament that more than 1,800 of such private planes had touched down in the UK during lockdown.

Some commercial airlines were still operating during this period, typically for either cargo services or repatriation flights, which likely explains why the US was the top destination in terms of outbound flights from the UK from March 17 to July 3.

Virgin Atlantic, for instance, made 24 repatriation flights across the period of March 18 to April 17 to and from places that include the US, India, South Africa, Barbados and Jamaica. Half of these repatriations were extra flights funded by Virgin to rescue customers who were stranded abroad, while the rest were fights were repatriation flights funded by the government - flights for UK nationals to return home regardless of the airline they originally travelled with.

Deal or no deal

A majority of flights leaving the UK from July 4 to July 17 were headed to countries for which an air bridge arrangement did exist, our analysis found.

During this period there were four flights to a country covered by air bridge arrangements at the time for every flight to a country without one.

Historic data for 2019 shows that air bridge countries were much more highly frequented than non-airbridge countries even before the easing of lockdown, with a similar ratio of 5 to 1 in 2019.

Air bridge countries saw inbound flights from the UK tick up immediately after lockdown and overtook their bridge-less counterparts, reversing the lockdown trend.

As of July 28, five new countries will be added to the list. They are Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.