Left stranded in South Africa

Maidenhead: Couple ‘abandoned’ in red list placement

A Maidenhead couple say they feel ‘abandoned’ by the Government after they were left stranded in South Africa when the country got placed on the travel red list.

Lauren Hopkins and partner Austin Noorkoiv jetted off to the Southern Hemisphere holiday spot for a 10-day trip on November 21 but four days later travel restrictions were imposed to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.

The pair went straight to the airport to try and book a flight home before the deadline requiring travellers to stay in a Government-approved quarantine hotel on return to the UK.

With flights either cancelled or full, they had no option but to continue their holiday and pay the £3,700 quarantine hotel fee after their planned flight home on December 1.

But their holiday nightmares soon mounted up as they were refused on their flight from Johannesburg to London Heathrow because they had been unable to book a Government-approved hotel due to no available rooms.

Lauren said: “We tried from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday all day and there was actually no availability.

“It dawned on us on Tuesday night when we were at Johannesburg Airport

with our flight home the next day we weren’t going to be able to go home because they won’t let you on the flight without hotel quarantine booked.

“We were one of thousands of people in the same boat stuck there with a return flight we weren’t able to get on.”

Lauren, who runs Maidenhead recruitment firm Grace Personnel, booked a new flight home for Sunday, December 5 but had to fork out hundreds of pounds for a hotel room in Johannesburg as well as rapid COVID-19 PCR tests.

She continued to try and book a quarantine hotel through the Government-approved firm Corporate

Travel Management but only managed to secure a booking hours before her new flight.

The 32-year-old described the support from British Embassy staff in South Africa as ‘non-existent’ and said thousands of people had been left in a similar position.

“You can’t put a country on a red list and make hotel quarantine mandatory when you don’t have the structure in place to allow people to do that,” Lauren added.

“They’ve imposed quarantine stay, fine. We’ve been trying to follow their rules and book the hotel but they’ve not put on nearly enough space in our own country for us.

“It feels like we had been totally abandoned.”

The couple finally arrived back in the UK on Monday but found themselves stuck on a bus for several hours while they waited for rooms to become available at nearby quarantine hotels.

They now face a 10-day stay in their room at The Crowne Plaza at T4 and estimate the fiasco has cost them more than £8,000.

Lauren also criticised the Government’s stance on access to its quarantine hotel hardship fund which states travellers must show evidence they have taken all reasonable steps to pay for managed quarantine, including using loans, credit cards and borrowing from family members.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are rapidly expanding our hotel capacity following our immediate and precautionary action against the omicron variant.

“We have doubled the number of hotel rooms available from Monday and will continue to increase availability on a daily basis.”