Due to the large forest fires that raged on the Greek island of Rhodes, many people have been evacuated from the popular holiday destination. Many flights and trips to the island have been cancelled. A Transavia plane will depart for Rhodes this afternoon from Eindhoven Airport. Travel agency Prijsvrij also cancels trips to the island. “We look at the possibilities every day.”
“We have about fifty of our customers on the island,” says Marc van Deursen, CEO of Prijsvrij. “We have been bringing those people back since yesterday and today the last ones are coming back to the Netherlands.”
Money Back
Price-free cancels the trips for today and tomorrow. “We look at the possibilities every day,” says Van Deursen. The people who still want to go to the island are not stopped.
“If the customer really wants to go, we will of course mediate that”, Van Deursen reassures. “Because we as a travel organization cancel the trips, people simply get their money back or we help them find an alternative. People have been looking forward to the holiday all year.”
Flight from Eindhoven
This afternoon a Transavia flight will fly from Eindhoven Airport to Rhodes. A spokesman for Transavia says that it is a ‘regular’ scheduled flight that will depart. “I don’t know if people will actually get on board. The airport on Rhodes is also still open.”
According to the spokesperson, no additional repatriation flights are planned for the time being.
Travel organizations TUI, which also has flights from Eindhoven Airport, report that they will not bring any new travelers to Rhodes until Tuesday. Travel organization Corendon also cancels trips to the island up to and including Tuesday.
Strong wind
Forest fires have been ravaging the Greek island for about six days, mainly in the densely wooded and sparsely populated places. The fires appeared to be under control on Thursday, but due to strong winds, the fires spread to areas where many tourists were on Saturday.
Even today, the island is feared for strong winds that will make fighting the forest fires even more difficult. According to the Greek fire brigade, the wind will become ‘intense’ in the course of Sunday and that can cause the conflagrations to be fueled.
19,000 residents and tourists have already been evacuated. The evacuated people spent the night in hotels, sports venues and schools, among other places.
Omroep Brabant is looking for Brabanders in Rhodes who have been evacuated or Brabanders who cannot go on holiday now because of the forest fires. You can register via [email protected]