Cork travel agent creates flights ‘crisis team’ to get customers out of Middle East

A Cork-based travel agent has said it is working to get its customers out of the Middle East with a newly-formed “crisis team”.

Cathy Burke, managing director of Traveller Counsellors Ireland, who is based at its Irish headquarters in Mahon, explained that the travel agency specialises in long-haul trips.

“On Saturday, all the team in our Cork office logged on from home and ran reports to find out which of our customers were in the Middle East, waiting to fly through there, or in transit,” she said.

“By Saturday afternoon, we’d been in touch with everyone affected.”

She explained that as well as people holidaying in the region, the airports at Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha are “massive hubs” for Irish people travelling to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, and other similar locations.

“We had some people in Dubai on holiday, then people transitioning through those three airports. We also had people who were about to leave Australia but couldn’t take off as their flights wouldn’t be able to land, or people whose flights had been stopped because they couldn’t go any further.”

Ms Burke said that as they started co-ordinating early, they were able to get some people home on Tuesday, because they got their customers on flights ahead of many others.

“The priority for airlines is to get people who are transitioning out, the people who have just arrived in the airports,” she said.

“We have an office in Dubai and 100 travel counsellors there, so it’s been very stressful for them the past few days. But they say things have quietened down now. Lots of people were back to work today, though children are still being homeschooled.”

As well as helping people to leave the region, they are also organising solutions for their customers elsewhere.

“Airlines are allowing us to bring people who are in Thailand back a different way, rather than through the Middle East,” she explained.

“It’s not easy, flights are booking up, but one of the joys of booking a holiday with a travel company is we have access to the airline systems. On Saturday, we assembled a massive crisis team.

“This was just so sudden and instant — we woke up on Saturday and suddenly the world’s fallen apart. We just hope it’s resolved quickly.”