Travel giant Tui said on July 23 that it was suspending all its inbound passenger flights to the Greek island of Rhodes, where forest fires have been raging for several days.
“Until Tuesday, no more new tourists will be flown” to the island by the German group, spokesperson Linda Jonczyk told the news agency, adding that empty planes were still being flown in to help evacuate the thousands of tourists affected.
“The Tui group currently has some 40,000 tourists on the island of Rhodes, of which 7,800 are affected by the fires and had to be evacuated to reception centres or hotels,” she said.
The fire broke out late on Sunday and there were no injuries, the airport said. Firefighters said they managed to contain the blaze about 90 minutes after it was called in, but provided no details on possible causes or any link to current high temperatures in the region. Catania was among several Italian cities that imposed a hot weather red alert.
The low-cost British carrier Jet2 also said Sunday that it had cancelled “all flights and holidays that are due to depart to Rhodes today”. It added in a statement on Twitter that it would fly the five aircraft originally scheduled to go to Rhodes “with no customers onboard, so that we can bring customers back to the UK on their scheduled flight”.
British airline Easyjet said it was operating as normal but would “closely monitor the situation”.
Some 30,000 people have had to leave their homes or hotels on the popular tourist destination due to the fires.
