HOLIDAYMAKERS have spoken of their frustration after changes to quarantine rules for people returning from Spain.

The announcement that British tourists coming back from Spain would have to quarantine for 14 days was made late on Saturday night.

Rebecca Laws, from Durham, flew to Spain on Friday with her parents and three-year-old son Theo for a three-week holiday in Los Alcazares.

She is now planning to return home on Thursday, while her husband Dan, who was planning to join them next week, will remain in the UK.

She said: “We’re having to come home on Thursday because my husband was meant to be joining us on Saturday, but if he uses those holidays and does come we would lose four weeks wages. He’s self-employed and doesn’t qualify for government support, it’s just not an option.”

Instead, Mr Laws, a spray painter, will use his planned holiday to quarantine at the family’s home in Langley Moor.

Mrs Laws said she wished she had been given time to get home before the rules changed. She added: “I’d have left today if given the option. I was aware change to travel was possible – I wasn’t blind to that. But they haven’t given us time to make any plans.

“There’s been no official announcement from the Government really until it was too late to make any options. I know what will be said, it’s for public health, but it wasn’t that for months at the beginning of lockdown when no quarantine was in place and then when it was introduced it was from a date ahead.

“When it was lifted again, they haven’t even given us hours of notice.”

Speaking to Radio Newcastle, another man from Durham, who is flying back from Majorca today, said:  “It came as a bit of a surprise yesterday when I heard the news.

“There was just no information. The reps on the site just didn’t know what was happening.”

He said the resort he was in, Alcudia, was “cleaner than clean”, adding: “It (having to go into quarantine for a fortnight) seems unfair for one day.”

Four flights were due to arrive at Newcastle Airport today, with five scheduled to go the other way.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Government will not apologise for reimposing strict quarantine rules at short notice on travellers returning from Spain.

The sudden timing of the announcement was criticised by the travel sector and consumer rights groups but Mr Raab said the Government was right to take "swift" action.

The decision was taken to suspend the so-called travel corridor with the UK's most popular holiday destination after Spain recorded more than 900 fresh daily Covid-19 cases for two days running.

The Foreign office is advising against all but essential travel to mainland Spain.

Consumer rights and travel groups expressed frustration at the lack of warning over the suspension of the travel corridor, with Tui, the UK's biggest tour operator, questioning why "we didn't get more notice of this announcement" with thousands of Britons flocking to Spain over the weekend.

Travellers also hit out at the Government's blanket decision to include the Spanish islands in the isolation measures.

The Foreign Office is now advising against all but essential travel to mainland Spain but the quarantine measures also apply to the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, such as Mallorca and Ibiza, despite having lower infection rates.

Tui has said it will cancel all planned holidays to Spain in response to the announcement and customers will be contacted to discuss options.

Abta has advised customers due to travel to the country imminently to contact their travel provider.

Meanwhile, airline easyJet said it planned to operate its full schedule in the coming days.

Quarantine measures will apply to those returning from mainland Spain, the Canary Islands (Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Graciosa) and the Balearic Islands, such as Majorca and Ibiza, the Department for Transport confirmed.