The Greek islands are experiencing vast wildfires, with more than 19,000 people already evacuated from Rhodes.
Corfu has become the latest island to issue an evacuation order as the wildfires have now broken out in the north of the region.
UK airlines are working to aid holidaymakers already in the Greek islands, and those scheduled to fly out soon, as temperatures soar. Three UK airlines released statements this week in regards to evacuations, flight schedules and customer help.
Easyjet and Easyjet holidays released the following statement on July 23:
“We are currently operating as normal to Rhodes however we continue to closely monitor the situation. We advise customers travelling to and from Rhodes to check the status of their flights on Flight Tracker.
@easyJetholidays is currently working to comply with requests of the local authorities, and is in contact with customers in resort to support them.
The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority.
Any customers who are booked to travel to or from Rhodes until 29 July can transfer for free to another date or can request a flight voucher for the value of their unused flights, by calling our Customer Services.”
Jet2.com and Jet2holidays also released at statements on the same day highlighting the airline plans for the future in this situation.
Jet2 have also confirmed it will run three repatriation flights today (July 24) from Rhodes- Manchester with 220 seats, Leeds Bradford with 189 seats and Birmingham with 189 seats.
“The situations in Rhodes continues to evolve quickly, and our absolute priority is the health, safety and well-being of customers and colleagues into the area to provide further assistance.
Our in-resort teams are work hard to comply with the guidance of local authorities, and we are continuing to bring more customer helpers and colleagues into the area to provide further assistance.
We continue toast customers in affected areas to follow the advice of both the local authorities, as well as staff in their hotels, who are acting under the advice of the authorities.
We are contacting all customers in affected areas as quickly as possible by telephone so that we can support them with what they need. We are sending direct communications to affected customers to let them know this, and to remind them of our 24/7Customer Helpline number.
We have cancelled all flights and holidays that are due to depart to Rhodes today(23 July) (five flights in total). We will be contacting affected customers to update them ,and to let them know that they will v provided with a full refund and the opportunity to rebook. We will fly those five aircraft to Rhodes with no customers onboard, so that we can bring customers back to the uK on their scheduled flight.
We are keeping the situation under constant review, and we will continue to make decisions in the best interests of our customers.”
TUI have also highlighted the airlines work with local authorities to ensure customer and staff safety:
“Our teams are working hard with local authorities in Greece to ensure the safety and well-being of all our customers currently on holiday in Rhodes and impacted buy the wildfires. We’d like to reassure you that we’re doing all we can to provide support and assistance. We appreciate how distressing and difficult it is for those who have been evacuated and ask they follow the advised of the local authorities, reps on the ground and hotel staff.
For those due to travel to Rhodes we can confirm we have cancelled all outbound flights up to and including Tuesday 25th July and passengers will receive full refunds. Those due to travel on Wednesday 26th July can amend to another holiday or cancel free of charge.
Those customers currently in Rhodes will return on their intended flight home.
The safety of our customer and staff is of top priority and we will continue to keep a close eye as the situation develops and shares more updates.”
Updates are happening frequently from both government officials and airlines. Holidaymakers are advised to continue to check their emails, the gov.uk website and their respected airline for updates and advice.
