Travel with Katie Butler: Italy drops Covid face mask rule for public transport

Katie Butler writes: The conference is sponsored by Palladium Hotels who are hosting the conference at the Grand Palladium Sicilia.

Annual conference is always a fantastic opportunity to meet with hoteliers and suppliers and of course mingle with other travel agents.

This time our flight was from Manchester, again early morning. We had fast track through security this time, which in all honesty, was well worth having, as even though we are now in October we found the airport to be as busy as peak season!

The queue for security was lengthy and passengers are still not getting their hand baggage quite right. This is holding up the speed of getting through the security lanes.

The main issues are as follows: liquids in hand baggage must be 100ml or less and placed in a single, clear, resealable bag.

Creams – such as sun cream, pastes – such as toothpaste, and sprays – such as deodorant also class as liquids and so should be in the same clear bag.

If you are a smoker and taking a cigarette lighter – you are only able to take one in your hand baggage. If there is more than one lighter in your hand baggage it will not be allowed through.

Also, electrical items such as laptops and tablets need to be placed in a separate tray to the rest of your hand baggage.

Getting your hand baggage correct before you go through security will ensure you go through the lanes swiftly, your bag will not get pulled to one side for a more thorough search, and of course it will help the lines move quicker.

Italy have recently updated their mask wearing policy and removed the requirement of mandatory use of FFP2 masks on public transport.

Italy are not the only ones to further drop entry requirements with Canada dropping all Covid requirements.

Morocco have also dropped all entry requirements and probably the biggest move came from Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) who announced that from October 4 passengers will not have to show proof of vaccination, take a pre-departure test or stick to wearing masks where required.

As an independent agency we do accept local school children for work experience and this week we were joined by Madison and Nicole from Mirfield Free Grammar for a one week placement.

These placements were arranged well before our conference dates were announced – so they were certainly thrown in at the deep end!

It’s fabulous to be in a position to take work experience students after three years of not being allowed to do so due to Covid. We look forward to many more to come.

Our jet setting for this year is almost coming to an end with our final event coming up in November when we are invited to the Algarve as VIP guests of Jet2holidays as a thank you for being a top performing agent.

This is always a fabulous event with guest speakers and a sneak preview of what is to come for the year ahead, we can’t wait to update you.