Rescuing standed Brits

As Urmonstongran says our lock down in Greece was immediate. We had already rearranged and paid for an earlier return flight to the UK but two hours before we were due to set off it was cancelled. We now have two different flights booked, our original for the end of April and another for the first week in May. It is possible both these will be postponed too.

We are lucky in that we have our own place to stay in and due to the early strict lockdowns, Greece is managing the crisis very well. We have strict procedures to follow even when shopping for food and were stopped and checked yesterday by the police.

We will take a repatriation flight if it becomes available as our son is under great stress in the UK managing our business and we are desperate to get back and take some of the pressure off him. We expect and will self isolate for two weeks on return whether it is mandatory or not as we do not want to risk putting any of our family or anyone else in danger and obviously passing through airports and travelling is extremely risky.

We are also happy to pay for yet another flight!

It is a very different scenario for people with no place to go stranded in places like India, Peru etc and we expect them to be a priority. However sensible you are and however much you plan, sometimes through no fault of your own you find yourself stuck. I am grateful to the government for trying to help.

notanan2 "Only selfish people go on cruises anyway" - what do you base that comment on?

Its a selfish thing to do.
Its the single most destructive way to travel. Its many times worse than air travel.
Its also the most exploitative way re lack of workers rights and freedons

Only selfish people take cruises. At any time.

But they do not make up the bulk of brits stranded abroad so its unfair to object to the rescues due to some brits currently abroad being selfish cruise types. There are all kinds of people stranded for all kinds of reasons.

Well we flew to NYC on 13th March for 3 nights. It was only on the Monday that we where told the flights in where being stopped. We were lucky. Some people on the same flight were there for a week others were heading out for a cruise!!!

My daughter is stuck in New Zealand left UK in December. She says the travel ban came in in hours not days. She could not even get a flight to Australia to go to her sister who lives there.
She has looked at getting a flight back but her last quote was £9000 and then it is not guaranteed that it will not be cancelled.
I think she is safer there at the moment although she is being put up by a kind friend. We speak regularly on WhatsApp so I try not to worry.

My son was in Nepal when things were hotting up. Hard to put a timeline on it. His trek had started before borders closed and the trek co cancelled all treks not already on the go. He saw Boris mention 'loved ones dying. We'd lost his brother already so he was upset. Nice girl kind to him. Next thing out of signal and trek co offered people choice of going on or leaving.
He left after a tearful call home worrying about us. Others nice but said he couldn't live life based on our experience, it would all be ok, wasn't so bad, etc no doubts at all.
Took 2 days to get back to Kathmandu booked a fairly empty flight - in the 2 days it filled up!
It's hard for young people to get how serious it is.

Bear in mind that people still havent had refunds from (sometimes multiple) flights they already booked to try to get home.

People who paid for return flights were flown one way then abandoned by their tour operator.

Most people have already paid several times over to get home and are still stranded. The flight operators/tour operators are the ones who should repay the government, not the individuals!

I havent read all this thread so forgive me if this has been mentioned before. I think it's partly an insurance issue. Some travel cruise organisations hadn't cancelled their cruises by say mid March for example. That meant all those booked on those cruises had two choices. 1 - Go on the cruise. 2 - dont go but forfeit the cost of the cruise as travel insurance companies wont pay out unless the cruise is cancelled.

As for ppl saying "I'ld pay anything to get home"

All well and good unless your credit card limit is £3,000 and the only seat is £8,000!

Some package holidays flew people out knowing their accomodation was closed, and only told them the accomodation was shut when they landed.

They knew that the only part of the package they would be honouring was the flight out, but didnt cancel so people could claim.

This all happened quicker than people are acknowledging. It went from a china thing to a global thing very fast. There was not a lot of notice.

I thought exactly this My son was working in Austria on his gap year but he had ample time to get home . Some people have a complete lack of common sense . I would prefer the money to be spent on PPE for my other son who is a radiographer in the nhs working every day for 12 hour shifts with no mask.

I'm not sure anything would induce me to get on a plane at the moment and neither would it have a couple of weeks ago. My husband was looking for a holiday for the first time in his life and couldn't believe it when I didn't want to snap up a bargain although he acquiesced. It is normally me who has to ballyrag him into travelling as he is a home bird.

Wish I had my crystal ball with me when we came to Spain on 7 Jan then! We can't take a small estate on a plane and can't drive through Spain and France as everything is closed except petrol stations with toilets closed. Not sure I could hold it for 20 hours solid driving!. Brittany Ferries have cancelled our ferry twice so hoping for April 23. Not everybody is gifted with looking into the future!

We have a GC abroad in a country in lockdown, no chance of them getting home to us or their parents. Fortunately they are in th same country as their maternal Grandfather so that is where they will stay until this nightmarr is over.

Right can all the posters saying they knew, tell us the exact cut off. When was it okay to travel (specific date please) and what date was it suddenly not.

And did you and yours go into lockdown here on that date?

I haven't been out of the door since 18/03, had discussion with DD and she and two GC moved in here on Mothers Day, (she had been social distancing for over a week) the lockdown order was made on 23/03.

I think that a lot of people in the U.K. did not see this coming, far too wrapped up in their own lives.

2 weeks ago my friends in Italy were updating me on the situation there and I’d already decided not to try and go out in May. 4 weeks ago I ordered online most of the essential foods and bought medicines and vitamins we might need.
If anyone left for a holiday abroad after 17th March my advice would be to get walking as it might take some time.

I had a trip arranged, just in the UK flying on Thursday 02nd. I decided to cancel this two weeks ago before airline announced cancellations today. If I can make this decision for just the UK why couldn't people
outwith UK cancel or make arrangements to get home before now. It's money, and oh someone will sort it for me again.

Granny the 18th was less than two weeks ago!

We all get it now but it really wasnt clear back then AND people were still being berrated for "panicing" and buying gel or trying to stock up..

I think that a lot of people in the U.K. did not see this coming, far too wrapped up in their own lives.
Thats not fair
A lot of people made the decision to follow official advice only and not join in with the panic buying etc.

It was a reasonable choice at the time

Nobody knew then that the panic buyers would be vindicated

This subject drives my DH mad and has him shouting at the telly. He feels it is deeply unfair of people to put this strain on the nation's resources, through their own bad decisions, at a time when every penny is needed. I am inclined to agree.

Countries may have gone into lockdown at different times, and our government may only have ordered it a week ago, but anyone with a smattering of intelligence could see what was coming. It is a pandemic - did they think that it would all just go away? Do people always have to be told "Don't do this" or can they make rational decisions?

I have a friend who is a dear, good-hearted sort but an absolute twit where common sense is concerned. She was still planning on going away on holiday, despite the worsening situation. I warned her not to go but she would not listen. She would be stuck there now if the travel company had not cancelled her holiday.

It still wasnt clear whether or not it WOULD be a pandemic or not back then.

The UK still thought it could contain it just by isolating travellers from countries from the risk list. Other countries were still listed as safe!

The only Brits who should be repatriated are those stuck on cruise liners as long as they are allowed to dock . To be stuck in an inside cabin for weeks would make me want to kill myself....they could all be then taken to the places designated to be put into isolation

There are brits abroad being isolated in basically prisons in countries that are doing enforced isolation of all foreigners.
There are brits abroad at risk of violence where locals see it a a "foreigner disease"

I do not think cruise ship passengers win top trumps on desperation to get home

My friend went out on a back packing holiday to Malaya in January and was due to fly back home today. There were very few cases of CV there and she felt safe to carry on with her holiday but then there was a religious festival where 15,000 people gathered. When they all went back to their homes, the virus spread very quickly to all parts of the country and they are now in a very strict lockdown.
She's been trying to get an earlier flight for the last couple of weeks but is stuck in Kuala Lumpur. The last flights out of the country were over £1500 and were sold in minutes. My friend has had to rent a room and will have to wait it out for as long as her money lasts.

Have airlines and tour companies not already been paid for these flights. They should be made to pay some mopney towards them.