Britain’s biggest peacetime repatriation has begun, with the Government facing the complex and costly task of fetching 150,000 stranded UK customers of the collapsed tour operator Thomas Cook from 53 destinations in 17 countries.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has pledged to bring every affected British holidaymaker back home within two weeks, free of charge. Most will be able to finish their holidays, it says, before being flown back on a replacement service at a similar time to their original itinerary. Dozens of charter planes, from as far afield as Malaysia, have been hired to complete the mission, dubbed Operation Matterhorn.
The vast majority of stuck Thomas Cook customers are in the Med. Spain, Greece and Turkey were the tour operator’s three most popular destinations prior to its demise, and rescue flights will be operating from 11 airports in Spain (Alicante, Almeria, Girona, Reus, Ibiza, Menorca, Palma, Fueteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Tenerife), 13 in Greece (Corfu, Heraklion, Kalamata, Kavala, Kefalonia, Kos, Mykonos, Mytilene, Preveza, Rhodes, Santorini, Skiathos and Zakynthos) and four in Turkey (Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman and Izmir).
Palma de Mallorca is among the busiest destinations, with five replacement flights scheduled for Monday and eight for Tuesday. Thomas Cook’s short-haul A321 aircraft have room for 220 passengers, so this equates to as many as 2,860 passengers.
Dalaman in Turkey is another, with 19 repatriation flights lined up over the next two days bringing up to 4,180 Britons back home.
Information on rescue flights has been published on the CAA website for those Thomas Cook customers due to fly on Monday and Tuesday. It all adds up to 136 replacement services over two days, retrieving up to 30,000 sunseekers. In addition to Greece, Spain and Turkey, there are flights planned from Bulgaria (Bourgas), Croatia (Split), Cuba (Holguin), Cyprus (Paphos), the US (Orlando), Dominican Republic (Punta Cana), Egypt (Marsa Alam and Hurghada), Malta, Portugal (Faro), Tunisia (Enfidha) and Mexico (Cancun). Titan Airways, a charter airline, is among those carriers assisting the CAA; British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are helping repatriate those on long-haul holidays.
Those due to travel home after Tuesday will have to wait for further details. For more advice for those passengers affect, see our guide.