Greece held the latest covid-19 related briefing on Monday, helmed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and spokesperson Stelios Petsas. While most of the focus was on addressing the continuation of phased reopening plans, such as the resumption of flights from the United Kingdom and Sweden, the conversation took a more interesting turn. Americans may once again be allowed to visit Greece come August, provided they produce a negative covid-19 test.
Greece has potentially opened the door for inbound travel from the United States, commenting during the televised press conference that flights could resume from “the end of the month”, meaning July, 2020.
Any future announcement will be based on the covid-19 response in both countries, and Stelios Petsas clarified that any traveler from the USA would need to produce a recent negative covid-19 test, taken within 72 hours of arrival in Greece.
Greece is experiencing a slight bump in covid-19 cases, but the government assured the Greek public that the jump is in line with modeling expected to bring a slight increase coinciding with the reopening of tourism and many other businesses.
The United States is currently not on the list of approved countries eligible to visit the European Union and associated member states, but ultimately each country is eligible to make their own exemptions and policies, and is not under total obligation to follow EU Commission advice.
Croatia famously continues to allow American visitors in, and has since May. Following a spike in covid-19 cases, the country did recently add a tricky negative testing requirement to any inbound visitors from countries outside of Europe.
Emirates offers one of the few direct routes between the US and Greece, with their Newark to Athens flight, but the route is currently pulled from sale until the first of September.
Connecting flights on mostly European airlines have always been in place, and continue to be for sale up to this day. Of course, Americans wouldn’t be allowed to board them right now, with few exceptions for people like immediate family members of European nationals.
The good news is: if and when Greece does allow US visitors, one stop flight options will exist, and on any news, other airlines would absolutely reinstate direct services in a hurry. Americans love Greece, Greece loves America and everyone loves a little sunshine and a nice tzatziki dip with a glass of wine.
Terrible idea IMO. I’m afraid those poor Greeks will Get walloped by asymptomatIc carriers. Bad enough that Americans have done this to ourselves. We certainly don’t need to share our giant outbreak with others.
I may cancel my September trip if Greece is full of asymptomatic Americans TBH. Not sure this will have the effect on tourism which the government hopes for – and yes Greek friends are already worried about growing Covid numbers.