Quote Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC View Post
That's not what I read. Flights have been severely restricted or stopped for some time.

5th Feb: The British man who got his family on 'last available Air China flight to UK' said:

"What about British nationals who need help to arrange a flight. Airlines are cancelling fights by the hour. Most flights from China to the UK are going to be cancelled. So if they (FO) are asking British nationals to urgently leave China, well if someone is in Beijing or Shanghai and they can't get a flight back to the UK, how do they expect the British nationals to leave China, how?"

Plus the other issue is the EU didnt do the same, so people flew from China into Europe then on to the UK. Italy banned all flights in from China but this caused deep irritation among other EU states who wanted to coordinate a 'joint response' and meanwhile arrivals continued.
I just read that during March some 3,1 million people travelled through Heathrow alone (50% of normal number) with no health check, no mandatory quarantine and no restrictions at all. Still today around 15 thousand people arrive from all over the world every day and there is still no mandatory quarantine for them or any other check done. The flights are not restricted, you can check the arrival board yourself to see that planes keep coming from Italy, Spain or USA every day.