Families and friends were overjoyed at London's Heathrow Airport after a travel rule change meant they could reunite after 18 months of pandemic separation.
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Britain reopened its borders to large parts of the world on Monday, scrapping quarantine for fully vaccinated arrivals from the US and the European Union, excluding France.
"Very, very excited. It means the world," said Sue Blake, as she waited to greet her son, daughter-in-law and grandson who had flown in from New York and who she last saw two years ago.
"It's a big chunk of his life and I'm so thrilled for him that he can come here," she said of her eight-year-old grandson.
Watching the hugs and tears in the arrivals hall, Heathrow's boss urged Britain to remove barriers to travel, not add to them, amid speculation the government was poised to impose more rules.
"Let's just make it easier now for people to travel," Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said.
But just as families, friends and business travellers arrived at British airports, the travel industry faced a new headache over potential COVID-19 warnings against holidays to Spain.
The nation has one of the fastest vaccination programmes in the world but the government has prevented the travel industry from bouncing back because of its maze of rules and track record for making last-minute changes.
In the latest twist, The Times newspaper reported on Monday the government planned to warn holidaymakers against visiting Spain, Britain's most popular holiday destination, because of concerns about COVID-19 there.
Spain could go on a new category of risk - the "amber watchlist" - meaning it could be upgraded to "red" at short notice, with arrivals having to quarantine in hotels.
In Britain, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has nearly reached 130,000.
Australian Associated Press
