Italy drops quarantine for passengers arriving on 'special flights' from the UAE

All arrivals must be on essential business, with trips for holidays still off-limits

Torbole on the northern shore of Lake Garda, Italy. Pixabay

Italy has dropped quarantine requirements for passengers travelling for essential purposes on certain flights from the UAE.

The Mediterranean country is allowing passengers from a small number of destinations to enter without self-isolating, providing they can prove they are virus free.

To do so they must board a “Covid-tested flight”, for which all passengers must provide a certificate showing they screened negative within 48 hours of their trip. They must take another rapid test on arrival.

If that is also negative they may enter the country without having to self-isolate.

They do not have to be immunised against the virus.

Japan and Canada have been granted the same allowance.

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Essential purposes includes business-related travel, medical treatment, visits by Italian resident permit holders, or to study – but not for tourism.

Airlines wishing to run Covid-tested flights must inform the Italian Ministry of Health of their intention to do so first.

All passengers on these flights must meet these requirements.

A spokeswoman for the Italian embassy said the UAE was added in recognition of the country’s successful handling of the pandemic.

“This measure is a recognition of the high performance showed by the Emirates in dealing with the pandemic, as confirmed by the data on the number of PCR tests related to the population, the percentage of vaccinated people and the fatality rate, which rank the UAE among the leading countries at global level,” the embassy said.

“Interested airlines can therefore notify the Italian Ministry of Health of their intention to implement the protocol, which includes the airports of Rome Fiumicino, Milan Malpensa, Napoli and Venice.

“The protocol applies to both vaccinated and non-vaccinated passengers who are travelling for essential purposes, pending the adoption of further measures at EU or national level aimed at the resumption of tourism travels from non-EU countries.”

Travellers from the EU currently have to self-isolate for five days, while those outside the area must quarantine for 10 days.

Latest travel deal for the Emirates

The deal with Italy is the latest effort to ease international travel restrictions for UAE passengers recently.

Safe travel corridors were set up with Bahrain, Serbia, Greece and the Seychelles this month.

The agreements allow for vaccinated passengers to travel between both destinations without the need to quarantine on arrival.

All travellers must continue to abide by other Covid-19 precautions while travelling and at their destination.