Shares in Easyjet (LON: EZJ), Ryanair (LON: RYA) and IAG (LON: IAG) are down on Friday morning as the UK government announced France to be removed from the UK’s travel corridor list.
From 4 am on Saturday, travellers will have to quarantine for 14 days or face a fine due to a spike in new Coronavirus cases. France and the Netherlands have joined Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg on the list of countries that are on the quarantine list.
Easyjet shares fell over 7% on the news, following the news that the budget airline had finished the sale and leaseback of 23 aircrafts to raise a total of £608m amid the pandemic.
Easyjet has already withdrawn £600m from the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility, as well as raise £419m through the issue of new equity.
On Friday morning shares fell 49.42 points to 6140.28. Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said that adding new countries to the quarantine list would “force a large swathe of cancellations right at the peak of the summer holiday season for one of the largest markets for UK tourists”.
IAG (LON: IAG) shares were also down over 6%, whilst Ryanair shares are trading down over 4%.
Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, remains positive despite the fall.
“It’s also important to remember that for all of the weakness of the last 24 hours that markets here in Europe remain on course for their second successive weekly gain, despite some anxiety about rising infection rates across various parts of Europe, as well as here in the UK,” he said.