British tourists are slowly returning home after a Saharan sandstorm blowing across the Canary Islands over the weekend turned the popular holiday destination into a Mars-like dystopian landscape.
Red clouds of sand grounded planes flying into and out of the Spanish archipelago’s airports. Departures from Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma and North Tenerife were able to take off on Monday morning, but those departing from South Tenerife continued to be grounded.
Earlier, customer service staff at the airports told the PA news agency they had remained open for passengers – despite there being no flights to board.
Passengers posted photographs of people sitting on the floor waiting for more information.
Greg Horsman, 29, was on holiday with his girlfriend and friends on a Tui cruise and was due to fly home to Manchester on Saturday evening.
But they were forced to stay in Gran Canaria for another two nights due to the storm.
He told PA: “It’s frustrating. We’re just ready to be home.”
Graham Whiteman, 30, arrived at Las Palmas airport at 5pm on Saturday night, but discovered his Tui flight back to Doncaster – which he was due to be on with his fiancee and her family – had been cancelled.
He said: “We were told we needed to check the boards for updates.
“We didn’t get any and then at 1.30am we found a Tui rep, who then sorted us out with a hotel room on the other side of the island at 4am.
“We got an email at 7.58am saying a coach would be leaving the hotel at 8.30am to take us to the airport and we’ve been here ever since.”
Tim Crew, 69, had booked a holiday to Lanzarote with his family after cancelling their previous holiday to Hong Kong and Thailand because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Their BA flight out of Gatwick Airport on Sunday has been cancelled and the family has been booked into a hotel.
He said: “It’s one of those things, really. If no one had talked to us and if there had been obvious problems and culpability, I’d probably be quite annoyed.
“But everyone’s done the right thing. The pilot came out a few times and told us in person and apologised, saying they had no more news at the moment and they were going to send us to a hotel.
“It’s not great – it’s not how I planned it [and] it’s not what I want – but these things happen.”
A spokesperson for Tui said: “We would like to sincerely apologise to customers for the disruption caused by the adverse and changeable weather conditions in the Canary Islands on February 22 and February 23.
“The safety of our customers and crew is always our highest priority and we are working tirelessly to find the best solutions for all our customers.”