Stranded Donegal tourists home safely from Canary Islands

Four Donegal families have returned home having been stranded in the Canary Islands due to sudden and unexplained flight cancellations.

Their carrier, Easyjet, decided to restrict flights to and from Spain, the Balearic and Canary Islands, as the country entered a state of lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to Donegal Live, a relieved Keara Collins from Malin Head said they had arrived back in Inishowen on Thursday past (March 19.)

She added: “We got to Fuerteventura airport yesterday (Wednesday) and managed to get through to Easyjet who reassured me I had the option of claiming back the money we had had to pay for the London to Belfast Flight.

“The company also covered our overnight accomodation in London, which was a relief.”

Originally Keara had flown out from Belfast airport and had expected to return there as scheduled from Fuerteventura.

Keara and her family had been unable to leave Fuerteventura, where they had been on holiday, because EasyJet had cancelled their scheduled return flight to Ireland, without prior warning or subsequent explanation.

In the days that followed, none of the stranded Inishowen people or their political representatives had been able to contact anyone in EasyJet to have the situation resolved.

Keara said: “On Saturday (March 14) we were due to fly out of Fuerteventura back home to Belfast. I did get a notification from EasyJet to say the flight had been delayed forty minutes, until 7.40pm. Then, half an hour after that, they let me know it was delayed then till 9.30pm but we were still to go ahead with our check-in. So we dropped off our bags and went into security.

“At that stage, I could not log in to my boarding pass and then, all of a sudden, it came up 'flight cancelled.'

“Now, right away on the app, it gave us a choice to book another flight for Wednesday. I tried that but it was sold out.

“After that, I panicked and I clicked Saturday's flight because I thought, 'We need to get out of here.' By that stage we could see everybody, the other EasyJet passengers, around us in a mad panic down at the desk. The Spanish airport staff were really trying to help us but they did not have much information and there was a language barrier. They were really doing their best in fairness,” said Keara.

At this point EasyJet said they would put the stranded passengers from EZY 6734 Fuerteventura to Belfast up in a hotel for one night only. Subsequent nights would be at the passengers' own expense and they would have to source their own accomodation.

Keara was on holiday with husband, Gary and children, Dylan, Jamie-Lee and Brooklyn. Her sister, Catherine, from Clonmany, husband, Stephen, and children, Kate, Ryan and Connor were also there.

Keara said: “That hotel was 40 minutes away from the airport and we would have had to arrange our own transfers to it and back to the airport. We had heaps of kids, ranging from 13 years to 18 months, so we had to make an on-the-spot decision. Thankfully, the guy who we had rented our apartment from, offered us the apartment because there was nobody else in it. We had phoned him from the airport.

“We spent the next day looking for flights but the communication here is terrible. We can't get through to EasyJet. We just can't talk to them at all. Apparently the EasyJet flight that was due into Fuerteventura on Saturday night just turned mid-air and we can get no explanation as to why.

“We re-scheduled the flight for Saturday, March 21 but that has since come up cancelled. We have been on steady trying to book flights but there are absolutely none to Belfast, where our car is parked. The only option we have is to fly into London and we are hoping that EasyJet, or someone, will take us home to Belfast.

“There are lots of Irish tourists stranded here. There is no way out. We tried Ryanair but it was going to cost us € 2,500 to get home to Dublin. We don't know if the flight is going to leave on Wednesday and we don't know if we will be able to book a flight to Belfast from there,” said Keara.

Donegal Councillors Albert Doherty and Martin McDermott had acted on behalf of the stranded tourists.

Cllr Doherty told Inish Times the Department of Foreign Affairs, Tánaiste Simon Coveney and Belfast Airport had been receptive but EasyJet had initially proved uncontactable.