Three of Europe's biggest airlines are to end a legal challenge against the British government after it scrapped its quarantine rule for travellers coming from some of the most popular tourist destinations.

A lawyer for British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair said that the airlines would end the judicial review of the policy, on the assumption that Britain publishes a list of exempted countries.

"On the premise it materialises, we have agreed everything else which needs to be agreed," Tom Hickman, lawyer for the airlines, told the High Court in London, adding he had no reason to doubt it would be published later on Friday.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Kate Holton)