Covid travel tests can cost more than five times the price of a return flight to Europe, it emerged last night.
It leaves families paying hundreds of pounds extra to go abroad this summer with MPs branding the expense ‘a rip-off’.
Ministers face increasing pressure to cap how much travellers pay for PCR tests and scrap on them to stop would-be holidaymakers from being priced out of foreign breaks.
A study by MPs looked at the cost of trips to popular European destinations later this month and compared them with the average fee for a single PCR swab after getting back to Britain.
It found Ryanair was offering return flights from East Midlands airport to Barcelona and Exeter to Alicante for just £18 between August 24 and 27.
But the typical charge for a post-return PCR test among Government-approved providers is £93 – some five times as expensive.The swab is also almost four times as costly as a return flight from London Stansted to Madrid.
A study by MPs found Ryanair was offering return flights from East Midlands airport to Barcelona and Exeter to Alicante for just £18 between August 24 and 27.Pictured: a sign to a Covid-19 test centre at London’s Heathrow Airport on July 31
Ministers face increasing pressure to cap how much travellers pay for PCR tests and scrap VAT on them to stop would-be holidaymakers from being priced out of foreign breaks (pictured: terminal 5 departures at Heathrow Airport this month)
And for destinations such as Berlin, Budapest and Faro in the Algarve, the test is more than double the price of plane tickets.
The research only includes the cost of a single post-return PCR swab, which double-jabbed travellers must take by day two after returning from a green or amber country.
It does not include the pre-return swab all passengers must take before boarding UK-bound planes, meaning testing bills as a proportion of flight costs can be even greater.Non-fully vaccinated holidaymakers also face much larger bills as they are required to take two post-return PCR swabs on days two and eight.
The Daily Mail has championed calls for the Government to drive down costs.
Tory MP Henry Smith, chairman of the all-party Future of Aviation Group, which conducted the study, said: ‘These figures demonstrate that testing for international travel has become little more than a tax on travel, adding a huge disincentive to travel.
‘When the cost of testing can be more than the price of a ticket, it is clear that the current system is not fit for purpose and needs urgent reform to stop the rip-off fees we are currently seeing.’
French police officers control customers’ health passes at a bar in Paris on August 9. The UK Government has repeatedly said it is working with the travel industry and testing providers to see how to ‘further reduce the cost of travel for the public’
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