Air Malta has reported huge interest in an extra flight scheduled on Friday to help British tourists beat a two-week quarantine restriction imposed from Saturday. 

But while some English tourists who spoke to Times of Malta said they were planning on cutting their holiday short, others were not prepared to let the new rules ruin their time on the island.  

People arriving from Malta from 4am on Saturday will have to spend 14 days in quarantine after the country was removed from the UK's safe travel corridor list. 

The extra Air Malta flight will depart at 5.30pm for Heathrow airport and a spokesman said seats on the 180-capacity plane were being sold up to three hours before departure. 

One man, planning on taking an early flight home, said he was surprised at the UK removing Malta from its safe travel corridor. 

“It’s annoying that we have to go home early but we won’t have to quarantine if we make it in time,” he said.

He said Malta's coronavirus precautions, which include social distancing at restaurants and mandatory mask-wearing on public transport, were more comprehensive than in the UK.

“There are a lot more precautions in Malta than in the UK maybe, in terms of hotels and cleanliness, which is quite surprising,” he said.

“I think a lot of it is sort of hyped up in the media, so don’t always believe what you read or see online until you actually come to a place like this. It’s really impressive some of the stuff that Malta is doing.”

A woman waiting to board a bus back to her hotel from the beach, said that she had chosen to come to Malta because of its previous success in curbing the spread of COVID-19 and has felt safe throughout her trip.

Tourists enjoy water activities on their holiday in the Bugibba Perched Beach. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“Well I can’t say I’m over the moon about having to quarantine but at the end of the day I can say we’ve had an absolutely lovely time here in Malta and I feel like it’s kind of worth it because we had such a good experience here,” she said.

She said that at the time of booking her holiday, she had analysed the daily coronavirus cases and chose the island because "Malta seemed to be one of the lowest".

"Being a small island, I looked at the Maltese government’s website and all the measures they were putting in place. It seemed to me that Malta would be a place where I could be relatively safe otherwise, I wouldn’t have come.”

Last month, Malta had the fewest active cases of COVID-19 in Europe but after a spike in cases, many linked to large parties and gatherings, it now ranks among the worst.