Anyone wanting/needing to travel by air to Greece/Crete now.

[ros21m]

From the middle of May, Lufthansa will be operating flights to Athens, starting 2nd June, you could have got a flight with them from Manchester-Frankfurt-Athens, but the flights on both 2nd & 4th are now sold out! Also flights available to Athens from Brussels, Zurich, Vienna & Budapest. To use these flights you MUST, at the moment get an Attestation form form the Consular service of the Greek embassy in the UK, which is only available to Greek Citizens & Greek residents. You have to provide the Consular service with details of your flights, name, passport details, nationality, resident permit number, address in Greece, AFM & AMKA numbers & tax return E1. Your flight in Athens will be met by Police & health officials, you will be tested & escorted to a quarantine hotel in Athens, to await the result of your test, normally 24-36 hours. You're given free accomodation & 3 meals a day while you wait. All ok, you can then proceed to your final destination, where you must self isolate for 14 days.

[Jean]

A report on the first Lufthansa flight to Athens today - it's in German but you'll get an idea: https://www.spiegel.de/reise/europa/luf ... 623079aacf

[Kilkis]

...Your flight in Athens will be met by Police & health officials, you will be tested & escorted to a quarantine hotel in Athens, to await the result of your test, normally 24-36 hours. You're given free accomodation & 3 meals a day while you wait. All ok, you can then proceed to your final destination, where you must self isolate for 14 days.

I don't have a problem with that procedure. It is not unreasonable that Greek citizens or others who are permanently resident in Greece should be allowed to return. I think all countries would follow that idea for their own residents. It seems to be designed about as well as you possibly could to minimise the risk of new infection entering the population from outside. It's not perfect. Obviously someone could agree to self isolate and then go out but I don't think you could put them in prison for 14 days. People who are resident are more likely to both know and follow the rules.

Warwick

[ros21m]

Before leaving the Airport for the Quarantine hotel, a form is completed, stating their address in Greece, phone number etc. These are passed on to the local Police & checks ARE being made, some people have been checked on several times in the 14 days, others have not been checked at all, but they could have been & 5,000 euro fine, if they're not found at home.

[Kilkis]

As with most laws it relies on the risk of being caught as a deterrent from breaking the rule. I cannot really think of any situation where you can police 100 %. You randomly and very openly police a much smaller percentage and rely on the fact that the rest know that policing is happening and don't know if they might be next. Makes sense to me.

Warwick

[filippos]

In March, friends of ours, permanent residents here, who had been on holiday to India had been planning to visit family in the UK on their way home. They were informed about the regulations restricting travel to Crete and decided to forget staying in England, catching one of the last flights before travel suspension.

In Athens they were stopped at Passport control and interviewed by police before being allowed to proceed to Crete. Quite early on their first morning at home they were woken by the doorbell and on opening the door were faced by two (maybe three) police officers who explained they were ensuring that rules were being followed and checked their documentation. The officers wished them a good day and departed with a cheery, "Not sure when, exactly but we'll be coming back. During the remaining isolation period they returned at least three times.

[filippos]

As with most laws it relies on the risk of being caught as a deterrent from breaking the rule. ... ...

Agreed and I suspect the size of potential fines helped to persuade many to comply.

[Guy M]

In March, friends of ours, permanent residents here, who had been on holiday to India had been planning to visit family in the UK on their way home. They were informed about the regulations restricting travel to Crete and decided to forget staying in England, catching one of the last flights before travel suspension.

In Athens they were stopped at Passport control and interviewed by police before being allowed to proceed to Crete. Quite early on their first morning at home they were woken by the doorbell and on opening the door were faced by two (maybe three) police officers who explained they were ensuring that rules were being followed and checked their documentation. The officers wished them a good day and departed with a cheery, "Not sure when, exactly but we'll be coming back. During the remaining isolation period they returned at least three times.

This is such a great example of why Greece has had so few cases - how to handle things properly.

[filippos]

In March, friends of ours, permanent residents here, who had been on holiday to India had been planning to visit family in the UK on their way home. They were informed about the regulations restricting travel to Crete ... ...
In Athens they were stopped at Passport control ... ...

This is such a great example of why Greece has had so few cases - how to handle things properly.

Much easier to find the address in the UK. Post code into he satnav ... , house # ... as opposed to, "Leave the abc plateia, head towards Ag. Xyz. After about 2Km turn left by Niko's kafeneion ....................

[Guy M]

Much easier to find the address in the UK. Post code into he satnav ... , house # ... as opposed to, "Leave the abc plateia, head towards Ag. Xyz. After about 2Km turn left by Niko's kafeneion ....................

Good point - and in our case: go to the village square and 500 metres away there’s a field; it’s somewhere in there.

[Kilkis]

While it is true that the UK has the simplest system, to be fair most towns and cities in Greece have street names and numbers. To me Greece doesn't seem that different from France. The Cedex number in France only gets you to the general area, rather like a Greek post code, and you would still need to enter a street name and number. Also like Greece, if the location is outside a town or city it probably won't have a street name. The only way I could enter the place I have stayed in France for the past few years, which is a single house on a country lane outside the town, into my satnav was to find it on Google Earth and get the exact latitude and longitude. The big advantage Greece has in the villages is that you don't need a street name and number. Simply stop any random person, give them the name of the person you are trying to locate and they will know exactly where the person lives.

Warwick

[YoMo2]

Well, no worries now. Latest rules? No tests, no quarantine for international arrivals. At least it's simple.....

Andrew

[YoMo2]

Well, no worries now. Latest rules? No tests, no quarantine for international arrivals. At least it's simple.....

Andrew

Unless you are the BBC. Today's BBC website has this appalling piece of reporting. Misleading or what?

He rants on for 90 odd seconds about tests and quarantine with one throwaway line buried in the middle that "it's about to change".

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europ ... e-arrivals

Andrew

[Kilkis]

I didn't see any ranting nor do I see how it is in anyway misleading. He accurately described what was happening at the time he made the report and said that it was about to end and Greece was about to welcome back tourists. How is that a rant or misleading? Since this was a BBC report primarily for a UK audience and given that the UK has had no real controls on people entering the UK, I think the key part of his report was that these were serious controls with a working system and that they had been in place since 20 March.

Warwick

[Forsto]

I think it should have been pointed out that the people arriving in the report at Athens airport were not coming for a holiday. They would have and still will until the 30th of May required an excellent reason for their travel. Friends who have a house here in Greece arrived last Friday via Zürich and were only allowed into Greece on production of various documents showing their reason for travel. Although they tested negative for the virus, they have another nine days of quarantine to complete before they can leave their house.