Jet2 has been asking holidaymakers in the Balearic and Canary Islands to end holidays early as the government reintroduces quarantine rules.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Officer earlier this week began advising against all but essential travel to the Spanish destinations, leaving travellers already there in limbo.

In response, Jet2 said it cannot keep sending empty planes to pick up passengers on many different dates.

Hundreds of customers are thought to have had flights back to the UK cancelled and been asked to return sooner than planned.

Travellers were informed of the changes via emails and text messages.

A Jet2 spokesman said: “Following the latest government advice regarding travel to the Balearic and Canary Islands from the UK, we have taken the decision to suspend flights and holidays to Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza up to and including August 9th.

“We have already suspended flights and holidays to our destinations in Mainland Spain (Costa de Almeria, Alicante, Malaga and Murcia) up to and including August 16th.

“We are operating empty outbound flights to pick up customers from these destinations up to and including August 3rd and we are contacting customers who are currently in these destinations to advise them of their options regarding flying back to the UK.

“We appreciate that some of our package holiday customers were due to stay on holiday for longer than this and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

“It is important to note that we are responding to a very fast-moving situation with updates coming from the government with little or notice, and we have had to make decisions about our programme accordingly.

“We can assure these customers that we will be in touch with them to resolve any issues that they may have.”

In response to the developing situation in Spain, Jet2 has added more flights and holidays to Greece and Turkey.

Over 30,000 new seats are now on sale, additional flights and larger aircraft which have been added this week.

The company is adding capacity to Antalya, Dalaman and Bodrum.

With nine destinations on sale to Greece (Corfu, Crete (Chania), Crete (Heraklion), Kefalonia, Skiathos, Kos, Preveza, Rhodes, and Zante), customers have plenty of choice.

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