Holidaymakers return to Britain from liners
UK NATIONALS who were trapped on board two cruise liners embroiled in a bitter coronavirus dispute have flown back to the UK.
Holland America Line guests disembarked the Zaandam and its sister ship the Rotterdam in Florida, US, on Friday following a battle between federal and state authorities.
Many of the 200 UK nationals caught up in the saga boarded a charter flight which departed Fort Lauderdale airport and landed at London Heathrow yesterday afternoon, the British Consulate General in Miami said.
However, messages posted on a Facebook group created for passengers to share updates state that some people have not been allowed to fly home yet.
Holland America Line had previously said guests with coronavirus symptoms “will remain on board and disembark at a later date”.
Charter flights are also repatriating guests to Toronto, Atlanta, San Francisco, Paris and Frankfurt, according to US news website Business Insider.
More than a dozen Covid-19 cases were reported on the Zaandam, plus some 190 people with flu symptoms. Four people have died, including two officially diagnosed with the coronavirus. Earlier this week, the ship offloaded its healthy passengers onto the Rotterdam.
Florida officials were reluctant to allow the ships to dock – for fear that taking more Covid-19 patients would further burden the state’s already-stretched hospitals – until US president Donald Trump intervened to approve the docking on humanitarian grounds.
The four included 75-year-old Briton John Carter, who died on March 22. His cause of death has yet to be officially revealed, but he was reported to have been on a ventilator in his last days.