Luke Petherbridge, director of public affairs at ABTA, discusses how educational visits might look for pupils heading to the continent with an entry/exit system in place.
Ever since the vote to leave the EU, back in 2016, ABTA – the UK’s largest travel trade association, and the School Travel Forum (STF), a membership body representing many specialist school travel businesses, have worked closely together on the implications for school trips abroad.
Now, with the year ahead due to be a big one in shaping the future of educational travel between the UK and Europe, it’s a good time to examine what’s changed, and how the two organisations are seeking political support to improve the current situation.
The UK no longer being part of the EU has had a significant impact on outbound school trips and the causes are varied; some changes were an automatic consequence of leaving - such as the end of the List of Travellers Scheme, which previously saw visa-requiring children able to travel as part of an organised UK school group.
Meanwhile, others were choices around the parameters of the UK-EU ongoing relationship - such as the UK’s departure from Erasmus, and thus the end of qualifying exemptions for UK nationals.
However, other changes are not directly Brexit related, but rather connected to subsequent policy decisions taken by the UK government post-departure, including the “one traveller, one document” rule, which is seeing the phasing out of the Collective Passport regime that previously allowed up to 30 children to travel together as part of an organised supervised trip.
Whatever the cause, though, the combined result has been an increase in friction and costs when organising school trips to Europe.
Changes to expect this year
The end of January 2025 marked five years since the UK officially departed the European Union. Over the coming months, the UK government will begin talks with their EU counterparts to try to negotiate improvements to the terms of the trade deal agreed at that time.
The year ahead is also expected to see progress towards the implementation of important border management changes by the EU, including the EU Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS).
There are significant question marks about how ETIAS will operate – especially for large groups where applications may be being submitted on behalf of other travellers. However, the immediate concerns of the travel industry are focused on EES. The system is expected to notably increase the processing time at the border for travellers during the initial registration phase (the first time of travel once the system is live), where biometric data will need to be verified.
This could lead to delays, especially at places designed to process large volumes of customers very quickly; when the system was meant to go live – back in November – worries remained that it would not be fit for purpose and that delays would result. The UK departure points with juxtaposed borders - Eurotunnel, the Port of Dover, and Eurostar – have been taking steps to mitigate the risk of disruption, including significant investments in infrastructure.
The decision taken by the European Commission, back in October, to delay implementation has been widely welcomed – including by ABTA and STF, who had been raising concerns with governments both in the UK and in European destinations.
Changes have since been announced that will enable a phased implementation process, over a period of up to nine months, with Schengen participating countries able to phase in the checks at different entry/exit points at different times, and – for a period - able to temporarily step down checks in the event of delays too. The proposed changes require approval by the European Parliament and EU Member States, so a date when it will go live is not yet known, but it is expected to be at some point in 2025.
Potential changes for schools
The possibility of broader exemptions for school travel has also been floated, but precise details on this front are not yet known to the industry.
ABTA and STF continue to urge both sides to recognise the huge benefits of overseas educational trips for young people – and to find accommodations that facilitate school travel in both directions. We’ve written jointly to the UK Home Office to ask that the UK re-consider the “one traveller, one document” policy – citing the important social mobility benefits of the Collective Passport regime, as a route to make travel as part of a school group accessible for all children, not just those whose families can afford a passport.
As the UK and EU enter talks on ways to enhance their relationship, we’ll be increasing our efforts to promote the vital role that school travel can play in fostering life-long connections and the valuable educational benefits that travelling brings to young people of all backgrounds.
To this end, ABTA held a parliamentary drop-in session in December to promote the benefits of youth mobility between the UK and Europe. During this session, the barriers to school travel were raised frequently with MPs and Peers across all parties in Westminster.
ABTA and the STF will be looking for more opportunities in the weeks and months ahead to continue to push our case, and I would urge readers to also make their own feelings on the subject known to their local MP.
2025 will be a big year in shaping school travel between the UK and Europe for years to come.
For more information about changes to travel to Europe, visit www.abta.com/eesandetias.
