Bad Weather and Insufficient Hotel Rooms Means Quarantine for Some easyJet Passengers on Gibraltar to UK Flight

THE airstrip at Gibraltar can suffer from problems with landings because of either strong winds or low dense cloud and in such a scenario, flights often divert to Malaga.

When this happens, passengers are normally taken by coach to the Spanish airport where their plane will be waiting for them and arriving passengers are bussed back to the Rock.

This is a much better scenario than in the days of Franco when Spain insisted that the flight be diverted to Tangier, passengers disembarked and then reboarded so they were flying from Morocco.

The only problem now however is that although Gibraltar is considered safe by the UK authorities and passengers from the Rock to the UK can escape quarantine, if they have to pass through Spain then they are automatically required to self-isolate when they arrive back in the UK.

Yesterday (August 25) a more unusual situation took place whereby easyJet EZY8906 to London Gatwick could not take off because of adverse weather and the airline was required to find hotel overnight hotel accommodation for passengers and crew.

According to the airline, it was unable to secure sufficient beds in Gibraltar and had to take a number of passengers into Spain to stay in a Spanish hotel, but that meant that those passengers when returning to the UK would have to declare that they had been in Spain and then self-isolate.

An unusual set of circumstances, but another indication of the new normality.