Almost all flights to Rhodes have been cancelled, empty planes sent to pick up tourists
Airlines and travel agencies are canceling flights and planned holidays to Rhodes due to the fires raging in the city. The broadcaster Ert reports it. The TUI agency is canceling all trips to Rhodes, all flights and holiday packages until Tuesday 25 July and sending empty planes to pick up tourists and repatriate them.
Low-cost airline Jet2 has canceled all flights scheduled for today to Rhodes and is sending empty planes for its customers to return to the UK. EasyJet has also announced it is canceling all package holidays to the island of Rhodes until Wednesday 26 July, however its flights are still operating today. The company has announced that anyone who has booked to travel before July 29 can change their flight for free.
The testimony of an Italian journalist: “Escape from the fire all night”
“We spent the night fleeing the fire, we moved around trying to anticipate evacuation orders. We went southwest to escape the flames, they took us into homes and are now in a hotel near the airport. Now we are safe but here it is a huge environmental disaster”. This is the testimony of journalist Massimo Alberti who is in Rhodes on vacation: “the fires have been going on for a week, it’s a disaster”. The same journalist observes that after the evacuations there are already «tens of thousands of people to manage. People are welcomed in gyms, sports halls, ferries off the coast of Rhodes, some hotels. The situation is not easy.” In particular, the departure for the many people who arrived on organized trips who missed their flights must be reorganized: “The situation is a disaster and at the airport there is a desk of the Greek Foreign Ministry to try to speed up the paperwork because many tourists, during the evacuations, were unable to recover even those”.
Astoi: there is no information from the local civil protection
“The associated Tour Operators who program the destination are experiencing many operational limitations due to the lack of information from the local Civil Protection”. This was stated by Astoi Confindustria Viaggi, the association that represents over 90% of the tour operating market in Italy, with reference to the management of the emergency due to the fires on the island of Rhodes. Astoi reports that “the operators’ assistants are contacting their customers to provide all the necessary information and to understand to which collection center they have been sent by the local authorities”. According to Astoi’s calculations, there should be around 7-8 thousand Italian tourists (excluding disembarks from cruises) in Rhodes these days, of which around 2,500 are customers of the Italian tour operators belonging to the association.
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