24 Mar, 2020 @ 17:30
1 min read

Brits stranded in Spain as NO Ryanair, Jet2 and EasyJet flights available, despite UK Government warning to ‘return immediately’

Ryanair

BRITONS have been left stranded in Spain, unable to follow UK Foreign Office instructions to return home immediately.

According to consumers’ pressure group Which? Travel, an investigation has found Ryanair, EasyJet and Jet2 have no more flights available to book from Spain to the UK this week.

This, says the organisation, has left many British holidaymakers stranded and frightened.

Last night Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “We are strongly urging UK travellers overseas to return home now where and while there are still commercial routes to do so.”

But this is proving almost impossible for many British travellers.

According to Which? airlines remain legally responsible for helping customers get home. Despite this, it has been deluged with calls from people who have had to endure multiple cancelled flights and been given little to no information of what to do by the airlines.

One couple whose story is becoming typical are Sandra and Lewis Will.

They had a flight booked with Ryanair from Alicante to Aberdeen on March 26.

When it was cancelled they rebooked for March 29, only for this flight to also be cancelled. 

Speaking to Which? Travel, Sandra said: “We are in our seventies and I have recently been released from a Spanish hospital after having a mini-stroke, so this kind of stress does not help.

“We are in Spain under lockdown, hoping at some point there will be rescue flights for all the abandoned people.”

In the end Ryanair offered them a refund, which they accepted as there were no alternative flights.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “While it’s right British travellers are being urged to return to the UK, the reality is that there are now thousands of UK residents stranded in dozens of different destinations with no means to get back.

“The government must improve its communication and provide British citizens fearful of being stranded abroad with useful advice.”

“Where scheduled services have been withdrawn, it should leave no stone unturned to get these people on flights home.”

Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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