Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
Special Committee on Covid-19 Response
Travel Restrictions
Mr. Niall Burgess:
We charter flights where we have a large number of citizens in one place or where we can bring citizens together to one place, but in many cases these are either small groups or they are quite widely dispersed. In those circumstances, working with other partners is often the most effective way of getting people back.
We also have a very significant number of people in the Canary Islands. Many of them are elderly and they are looking to come back in order to have health checks. Because flights are regularly posted and seats are posted for sale, they sometimes develop a false sense of security that they have a flight booked for 3 or 4 May and when the flight is cancelled then the frustration sets in. We are looking in particular at a cluster in the Canary Islands at the moment and we are urgently trying to get them back.
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