Those on board the repatriation flight will now remain at the UK’s initial Covid quarantine site in Merseyside
21:19, 10 May 2026Updated 22:27, 10 May 2026
The chartered Titan Airways flight
A repatriation flight carrying passengers from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak has now landed in Manchester. The chartered Titan Airways flight departed from the Canary Island’s south airport on Sunday evening (May 10), before touching down at Manchester Airport at 8.45pm.
The passengers on board the plane were screened while on board before being escorted straight onto coaches. They were then transported via police escort to UK’s initial Covid quarantine site in Merseyside. They did not enter the airport at any point, Manchester Airport confirmed.
The MV Hondius arrived in Tenerife on Sunday morning, with Spanish authorities beginning evacuations of the ship by nationality and ferrying passengers to a port by small boat. Some British passengers, seen in blue PPE and masks, waved and gave thumbs up as they passed watching media.
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Earlier on Sunday, 22 British nationals were taken to shore, with 20 getting on the repatriation flight to Manchester after being tested for hantavirus and two dual-nationals heading elsewhere, Sky News reported.
Pictures taken from the airport showed the chartered flight after landing in Manchester.
The flight touched down in Manchester(Image: ASP)
It was then met by coaches ready to take those on board to the isolation facility at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside.
Other images showed a large police presence at the airport ahead of the officer escort for the coaches.
Police at the airport ahead of the escort(Image: ASP)
In a post on X, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Thank you to all those who worked around the clock to get passengers from MV Hondius back to the UK by special flight this evening with public health protections in place. The UK has worked with Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and the WHO to coordinate safe returns.”
The Arrowe Park facility has six storeys of self-contained flats with their own bedrooms, en-suite bathrooms, kitchen and lounge facilities. Janelle Holmes, chief executive of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, told the media that Arrowe Park would do ‘welfare checks on each individual’.
She added: “There’s nobody being transferred to us that has been symptomatic in any way. There’s no impact on the hospital. Services are running as normal, patients should still attend their appointments.”
The hospital leader said if passengers develop symptoms, they will be taken to Royal Liverpool University Hospital, which houses the regional Tropical and Infectious Diseases Unit. Ms Holmes said hantavirus is ‘very different’ to Covid and the risk to the general public is ‘really low’.
Coaches were driven to quarantine facilities(Image: ASP)
She added: “You’ve got to have really, really close contact. It’s not like Covid or flu or those types of viruses.”
After their isolation, public health specialists will assess whether passengers can isolate at home or at another suitable location based on their living arrangements.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said its goal was to fully finish the ship’s evacuation, with the exception of 30 crew members remaining on board, by 7pm on Monday (May 11). Passengers were told to leave their luggage on the ship and were only allowed to take a small bag with essential items such as their phone and passport.
Spanish authorities said that no passengers on the ship were showing symptoms of the virus, with 14 Spanish nationals who formed the first group to be evacuated from the vessel being flown to a hospital in Madrid.
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Tenerife that the outbreak was ‘not another Covid and the risk to the public is low’.
After returning to the UK, the passengers will be housed and provided with clothes at an accommodation block on the Arrowe Park site away from the hospital’s public areas to receive clinical assessments and testing as a precautionary measure.
The hospital was used as the UK’s initial Covid quarantine site, with blue tarped fences around accommodation blocks being erected on Sunday morning. Emergency services in the North West of England said they expected the passengers to be kept in the ‘managed setting’ for up to 72 hours.
(Image: Getty Images)
They added that the NHS Trust and hospital is ‘operating as normal’ with no risk to patients, visitors or staff and ‘people should continue to come forward for care as usual’.
Following their isolation, public health specialists will assess whether passengers can isolate at home or at another suitable location based on their living arrangements. UK nationals will stay in self-isolation for 45 days and will not be allowed to take public transport to their homes.
Some 30 crew members and a nurse from the Netherlands, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam in the Netherlands where it will undergo disinfection, the WHO said.
The WHO said previously there had been six confirmed hantavirus cases linked to MV Hondius and four patients were currently in hospital. It added that a total of eight cases, including three deaths, had been reported – with one previous suspected case being reclassified after testing negative for hantavirus.
British citizens were evacuated from the MV Hondius after docking in the Granadilla Port on Sunday(Image: Getty Images)
The UKHSA said three British nationals are included in the eight cases – two involve confirmed hantavirus and another one is suspected. The two confirmed British cases are in hospital in South Africa and the Netherlands, while the third British national with a suspected case is being supported on the British overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha where they live.
Six paratroopers, an RAF consultant and Army nurse from 16 Air Assault Brigade were parachuted onto the South Atlantic island, while oxygen supplies and medical aid was also dropped on Tristan da Cunha, which is normally only accessible by boat.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was the first time medical personnel had been parachuted in to provide humanitarian support.