The Foreign Office has brought more than 200,000 UK citizens stranded across the world as a result of the coronavirus back to the country on repatriation flights.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the flights, in partnership with 14 airlines, included the repatriaton of 200,000 people from Spain, 13,000 from Egypt and 8,000 from Indonesia – along with about 2,000 more from seven other countries.
A further 1,550 people have been repatriated from cruise ships, including most recently Princess Cruises’ Coral Princess and Holland America Line’s Zaandam
Raab, who gave the government’s daily coronavirus briefing in the absence of prime minister Boris Johnson who has Covid-19, added: “For those travellers still stuck abroad, we are doing everything we can to keep airports open, commercial flights [running] and to charter flights.
“Every arm of government is doing everything it possibly can to defeat the virus… both at home and abroad.”
The Foreign Office announced a series of planned repatriation flights on Saturday, with flights from The Bahamas and Philippines due to take place on Tuesday, and flights from India also planned this week.
The UK government is spending £75 million on its repatriation efforts.