TUI cancels all trips to Rhodes due to the forest fires, holidaymakers cannot go back

Travel organizer TUI has insufficient free capacity to bring Belgians back earlier. That says spokesperson Piet Demeyere. “There is not much space on our return flights and it is high season, so other aircraft are not immediately available. We can therefore give few travelers the opportunity to return earlier,” says Demeyere.

“It is also being examined whether aircraft on other connections can make a stopover at Rhodes, but those are also full.”

“Worst Period”

According to the spokesperson, it is “the worst time of the year to have something like this”. Most Belgian TUI travelers will therefore have to wait until their scheduled return flight to return. TUI’s priority is now to find new accommodations for its about seventy holidaymakers who were evacuated from their hotels on Saturday because of the forest fires.

“We don’t understand why we left”

Holidaymakers Dieter Verbauwhede and Charlotte Everaed are currently on the island and hope to return home as soon as possible. They don’t understand why they were allowed to leave at all. “Yesterday in Ostend we received the green light to leave for Rhodes. Once we arrived, forest fires were clearly visible from the plane and everyone was amazed by the situation,” says the couple.

“We couldn’t go to our hotel due to forest fires, after an hour of waiting we were finally taken by taxi to another hotel, where we got the last room.”

No prospect of return

The couple from Anzegem only decided on Wednesday to book a last minute, but are now experiencing anything but a holiday. “This morning we received a message from TUI that they have no insight into the situation and we had to leave our room at 11 am. Now we are waiting for more information and we hope to be able to return home as soon as possible. It is a pity that communication is so bad.”

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