British citizens trying to escape the war zone in Israel are having their repatriation flights repeatedly cancelled by the British government, while emergency flights arranged by US and Australian authorities are landing in the UK.
The government has failed in its attempts to organise repatriation flights for British nationals to return home from Israel because of problems obtaining insurance, an aviation source told the PA news agency. Late on Friday it appeared the government had turned to using military transport to evacuate citizens.
Earlier in the day a UK-organised flight that was scheduled to arrive at Gatwick airport on Friday was cancelled. A second attempt to arrange the flight also failed.
The contracted airline, Titan Airways, is understood to be having difficulties arranging insurance. Other flights, however, including scheduled commercial flights operated by the Israeli airline El Al and repatriation flights organised by other countries for their citizens, are successfully reaching the UK.
Three flights from Israel landed at Stansted airport on Thursday, carrying mainly US citizens on behalf of the US government.
A repatriation flight to Heathrow for Australian nationals organised by the country’s government and operated by Qantas was expected to land on Friday.
Late on Friday, a UK government-chartered flight to evacuate vulnerable Britons from Israel had left the country, the Foreign Office (FCDO) said. The FCDO did not confirm where the flight was due to land.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “A UK government charter flight has now left Israel, with further flights expected to leave in the coming days while commercial options are limited.”
According to flight tracker tool FlightRadar24, a Royal Air Force A400M transport plane left Tel Aviv and arrived in Larnaca in Cyprus late on Friday evening.
British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet and Wizz Air are among the operators to have suspended their flights between Israel and the UK since the attack on Israel by Hamas militants on Saturday.
When the FCDO announced on Thursday that it would organise flights, it said the first one would operate that day and they would be available to “British nationals, including dual nationals, and dependants if travelling with a British national normally resident in the UK”.
To “reflect the costs of operating each flight”, the government is charging £300 a ticket. The children and other dependants of British diplomats will also be given seats as “we have a duty of care to our staff”, the FCDO said.
A spokesperson for Titan Airways said: “We do not comment on flights we are or are not operating.”
