TUI – the world’s largest holiday tour operator – has cancelled all flights from Ireland and the UK to Rhodes up to and including Friday.
The operator had, initially, cancelled all outbound flights up to tonight/Wednesday morning. It is also operating repatriation flights off the wildfire-stricken Greek island.
Meanwhile, popular mainstream European short-haul holiday airlines – like Ryanair and EasyJet – are still operating as normal to fire-affected Greek islands.
“We are still operating flights to/from Rhodes and Corfu,” a Ryanair spokesperson told the Irish Independent, adding there is no updated advice for passengers “at present”.
Ryanair said many of its passengers are travelling to areas on Rhodes not affected by the fires and, thus, the airline has not had any requests to cancel flights.
Sky News reported that UK Government Minister Michael Gove is travelling to the Greek islands next week, on holiday, and said Evia – where he is travelling to – is “safe” and that it is “absolutely right” that people can still travel to Greece.
Currently, there are wildfires raging across Europe – with Spain, the Canary Islands, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Germany and France affected.
On Monday evening, Palermo Airport in Sicily had to close because of encroaching wildfires.
