Thousands of holidays have been cancelled by travel companies in the coming days in the wake of the wildfires crisis unfolding in Greece.
Jet2 was the first to announce it had pulled all flights and holidays due to depart to the island of Rhodes up to and including Sunday, July 30.
The company said it would be contacting affected customers to arrange refunds or re-bookings.
Meanwhile, TUI yesterday suspended its flights to Rhodes until tomorrow, with passengers receiving full refunds.
Those due to travel on Wednesday can amend to another holiday or cancel free of charge, the company said. Thomas Cook announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos — the areas of Rhodes most at risk — up to and including Monday, July 31, and would be in touch to offer its customers full refunds.
Holidaymakers travelling to other parts of the island on July 24 and 25 were being called in departure order to receive a full refund if they wished to cancel their trip.
As of this morning, British Airways was still operating its scheduled flights to Rhodes as normal. However, customers currently on the island needing to come home early were able to change their return flight free of charge. The airline said anyone travelling out from the UK in the next week can postpone their flight to a later date if they wished.
For anyone heading for Rhodes who has booked with another operator which has not already said it is cancelling holidays and flights, and offering refunds, the advice from the Foreign Office is likely to be crucial.
Official advice against travel would spark automatic refunds. However, the line this morning was for all holidaymakers to get in touch with their operators for advice.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokeswoman said: “British nationals in Rhodes should contact their travel operator in the first instance for any queries regarding the rescheduling of flights and continue to check our updated gov.uk travel advice for information.”
