Passengers complain that the situation is a mess. They should be paid the hotel until they can return, some on September 5. The consul of Spain in New York stays with them. About two hundred Spanish tourists raced today at the counters of the John F. Kennedy International Airport to try to return to their homes, since the passage of Hurricane Irene by New York despite the cancellation of their flights during the weekend. The Spanish consul in the Big Apple, Fernando Villalonga, who moved up there to try to calm the situation of passengers, explained that that airport had this Monday between 150 and 200 passengers of the airline Air Europe, both flights cancelled on Saturday and Sunday. It is a mess.

Have given no date for when they can fly and have offered them hotel nor maintenance, said the consul, who said he has met with executives of the airline in New York to try that Spaniards have a safe date for to fly in six or seven days. Villalonga said already this morning the Consulate General in the city responded to about eighty people affected by cancellations, most of them traveling with Air Europa, and recognized that the mood of the travellers was crepe to the impossibility that found many return to Spain as soon as possible. The consul, who said he will remain at the airport until continue having Spanish passengers there, said that despite the fact that the Spanish authorities can do little or nothing about it, yes they could manage the return to Spain of a person who was awaiting urgent medical assistance in that country. Will has mounted a little mess, people has been nervous because no us have attended, he explained to Tamara Gil, a passenger affected by the cancellations that assured that the airline has refused to pay them housing or meals during these days and has been limited to offer them fill in a claim form and provide them with a phone of help to the client that communicates constantly. People have started to out them, screaming Air Europa scammers, and not moving of desks, therefore not allowed passengers to Bill went tonight, explained Gil, who said that tension was increasing and even led to ten military to intervene so that passengers will withdraw. Meanwhile, Gil, who should have traveled to Madrid with Air Europa on Saturday night and now has no scheduled his return until September 1, explains that the hotel night is at astronomical prices, around $300. According to the passenger, who claimed that other Spanish tourists who were flying with this airline do not have ticket until the 4th and 5th of September, he said that Air Europa has offered flights to Spain before those dates, but in business class, and for an additional fee of $1,500. The consul general noted that in this type of crisis often six or seven days for that all over the world You can return to their homes if extraordinary measures are not taken. The arrival of Irene in the Big Apple, where it made landfall on Sunday downgraded to tropical storm, caused the closure of five airports that provide service to New York City, on Saturday, and the cancellation of more than 10,000 flights, although Monday the normalcy was returning gradually. Source of the news: two hundred Spaniards crowd in JFK airport waiting to get out of New York