Americans scramble to get last flights home before coronavirus travel ban

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Bottleneck: a queue to pass go through customs at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago at the weekend
AP

Thousands of travellers were scrambling to beat the US ban on flights from the UK today before it comes into force early tomorrow morning.

The US announced at the weekend that its block on flights from 26 European countries in the Schengen free movement area would be extended to Britain and Ireland. It comes into effect at 4am tomorrow London time.

Students Jacob Ford, 19, Alexander Villasenor, 19, John Griffin, 20, and Conner Hutton, 19, said they had bought last-minute flights to the UK from Madrid in a bid to get home to the US.

The St Louis University undergraduates, who are studying in the Spanish capital on a year abroad, spent Saturday night in Madrid airport and were hoping to fly back to New York from Heathrow this morning.

Mr Ford, a marketing and business analytics student, said: “We were out last night when we got the news about the lockdown, and we just knew we needed to get back as soon as possible.

“There’s been a lot of panicking in the US, and our parents asked us to get back as soon as possible.”

Mr Villasenor was heading back to Chicago. He said: “Our school recommended that we come home, we saw that they were going to close all flights from Madrid at 8am on Sunday, so we knew we had to get out.

“We were nervous we wouldn’t get our connecting flight. We had to have a talk earlier on and calm each other down.

“In Madrid the only thing that’s open are the supermarkets and chemists. We got an Uber to the airport last night and the whole city was like a ghost town.”

Mr Griffin said: “We are going to have to go home and self-isolate. We can’t even hug our families when we go back, and it’s been months since I’ve seen them.”

Nicolas Morales, 19, a youth player for Spanish football club Malaga, had to cut his season short by a month to get back home to North Carolina. He said: “It’s been stressful but I’m looking forward to getting home. Yesterday I tried to get back but they cancelled my flight because the plane had to be cleaned.

“I’m still just halfway home. My ­parents just want me back now, they are ­worried.”

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