Chaos for UK tourists abroad as they face battle to return to Britain amid coronavirus lockdown

British tourists are being stranded abroad and face a battle to return home as  airlines lock down and limit flights due to coronavirus quarantines. 

From Morocco to the Philippines, reports have surfaced of British travellers stuck at airports, waiting for the chance to return home. 

Spain’s closure of its land borders on Monday sent British tourists at popular resorts Benidorm and Mallorca fleeing for the airports in a mass exodus to reach home before being trapped.  

One British tourist trapped in Marrakesh, Rory O’Connor, told the MailOnline: ‘We’ve been in a queue for easyJet for four hours.

‘We’re probably still another hour to an hour and a half from the front.’

As well as the growing queues O’Connor, who has been in the north African country with his girlfriend since Friday, said passengers are being provided with contradictory information. 

‘The information being provided by the British Embassy is completely different to what’s being said at the airport,’ O’Connor told the MailOnline. 

‘The ambassador claimed he was getting 30 planes sent over but easyJet, Ryanair and BA have no information on the flights.’

‘The Embassy have been useless,’ he added.   

After arranging for someone at home to book an escape route to get him back to the UK at 7pm this evening, Rory said a member of staff at the information desk told him there was no record of the flight. 

Thomas Reilly, the British ambassador to Morocco, said that BA, EasyJet, Ryanair and Tui were planning to send out rescue flights in the coming days. 

Eight thousand miles away in the Philippines, Benjamin Cooper and his partner Holly Younger are trapped at an airport in Manila.  

Younger told the MailOnline: ‘We’re just about to try and sleep on the floor amongst hundreds of others outside the airport as our flight “home” is not for another 15 hours.’ 

She added ‘[We’re] in a country that has given us no support, guidance or information during our time here and left us 2 grand down over the last 3 days after paying for “mercy” transport.’

The couple escaped from Palawan, a small island 620 miles from Manila, and were given a space on a ‘mercy’ flight from Puerto Princesa to Clark, for stranded tourists by the Filipino government after they shut down air routes with just hours notice. 

‘This mercy flight was supposed to safely evacuate us so we could get home,’ Younger told the MailOnline. 

‘Instead we landed in Clark international airport a dirty, dangerous city with a lot of poverty and, since the lockdown, very limited access to the international airport.

‘We had 72 hours to leave the country or be stuck for 30 days. 

‘We queued for 8 hours outside an airline ticket office just to find out there were no flights under £1000. 

‘Thankfully the next day the government changed the policy yet again and we were able to buy a flight home online.’

In Clark, restaurants had been shuttered down because of the virus and supermarkets were emptying, Younger told the MailOnline.  

‘We waited for a bus to Manila with hundreds of others, sat on the floor outside for hours, just so we could sleep in the airport before our morning flight.

‘Feeling scared and trapped was nothing in comparison to how unwelcome and uncomfortable the locals here have made us feel. 

‘They laughed when they saw me crying outside the airline office, inflated transport prices so high we have been stranded and posted awful things about westerners on social media.’

She said that locals were not the only ones to turn nasty amid the coronavirus panic.  

‘Backpackers and tourists have also turned on each other, pushing in lines, withholding information to benefit themselves and a general selfish attitude from most people.’ 

Meanwhile in Spain, countless British tourists have been in touch with the MailOnline to express their concern at being stuck without the prospect of a land crossing to get home. 

Steve and Cheryl Roberts told the MailOnline they are stuck on a campsite near Malaga in their motorhome. 

‘We are all under lock down,’ they said. 

‘The campsite may be forced to close and we are two days from the French border. By the time we get there the border could be closed.’   

‘It’s a total nightmare’, they added. 

The couple’s comments came just hours before the Spanish government told British tourists to leave the country within days due to the closure of hotels nationwide next Tuesday.   

The Foreign Office today warned British travellers to ‘make travel plans to return as soon as possible’ after Madrid announced the shutdown. 

Holidaymakers are urged to ‘contact their tour operator or airline as soon as possible’ to make arrangements to fly home.     

Another traveller trapped in Marrakesh, Beth Marletta, said that British Airways told her they would not be able to send out a rescue flight for weeks despite them promising a repatriation service.

‘Just off the phone to BA who have said they can’t reschedule our flight until April now,’ she told the BBC.

‘There are no rescue flights despite what the news are saying.’ 

Marletta and her partner were due to fly back to Heathrow on Saturday, but have been stuck in Marrakesh with little help from British authorities, she said.  

Today, Ryanair announced that it would be cutting its scheduled flights due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Between 18 March and 24 March, the airline said it would cut flights by 80 per cent.

The operator added that customers would be emailed with options, and asked customers not to call as they are overloaded with enquiries.   

From 24 March, Ryanair said that ‘most if not all Ryanair Group flights will be grounded, except for a very small number of flights to maintain essential connectivity, mostly between the UK and Ireland’.  

Another British tourist, Amir Mahmood, managed to secure a flight home after tweeting a video from Marrakesh airport about his struggle to get back.   

In the video Amir said: ‘We don’t know what to do. We feel completely stranded along with hundreds of other British people.’  

One traveller, Sarah Baxter, told the Telegraph that she is ‘one of 150 Britons stranded in Peru’.

In an article for the Telegraph, Baxter explained how she came into contact with a group of 150 abandoned British tourists through Twitter, who are now trying to put pressure on the government to help them get out of the country. 

She said she was made aware of the sudden dash to escape the South American country just 24 hours before she would have to leave, or face a 14-day quarantine, and be unable to get home. 

‘Confusion reigned’, Baxter wrote in the Telegraph. ‘There were rumours that extras flights were being put on. Or that even scheduled flights were cancelled.’

After she had exhausted the airborne options, she said that some people tried to flee by taking taxis to neighbouring Bolivia, in the hopes of crossing the border before Peru was locked down. 

After deciding there were too many potential dangers, Baxter said she decided to stay. 

‘So here I am. Confined to a house, only allowed out to pop to the shop or pharmacy (the streets being policed), with little official support,’ she said. 

Of the 150 people abandoned Britons she is now in contact with on Whatsapp, she said that some have health conditions, while others are running out of much-needed medication. 

Two of the 150 people in contact with Baxter could be a pair of British women who are in lockdown at a Peru hostel. 

Tess Bettison and Stevie Chandler said they were unable to book flights out of the country and have been locked down in a hostel amid rising ‘xenophobia’ against Europeans.   

‘We have been locked inside our hostel for safety alongside other British nationals but we don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to stay here,’ Tess told the BBC.  

Similarly to Baxter, they were given just 24 hours to leave, but received no word from the British Embassy or their travel company. 

They tried to get a flight to other locations, like the US or Chile, but some prices were too high.