Lancaster nurse and her sister make it home after being stranded in Dubai airport

Two sisters – one a nurse at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary – who were stranded in Dubai airport after all flights were grounded have arrived back home.

Rosie Addison, 25, and her sister Jenny Rose, a 28-year-old police officer, had been stuck in the airport since last Tuesday.

They were desperate to be flown home so they could help their colleagues on the frontline.

The pair had been trying to get home from a holiday in the Philippines, but after arriving in Dubai their flights were cancelled.

They were left in the airport without their suitcases or their passports, and little food, for almost a week.

However, the sisters were put on flights to London at the weekend, flying via Croatia with Fly Dubai and Criatia Airlines. The flights will be funded by Emirates, who the pair had originally flown with.

They are now back home in Kendal, where Rosie is in seven days’ self-isolation before she can return to work at the RLI.

“We are absolutely overjoyed to be home,” Rosie said. “It still feels surreal because we thought we would be out there for a lot longer and just to see our families has been lovely.”

Rosie said they are now in the process of contacting everyone who had been in touch with them to say thank you for their help and support.

They were particularly grateful to staff at the British Embassy in England and Croatia for their help in getting them on flights.

Rosie and Jenny had been forced to remain in the airport after landing in Dubai.

When the pair arrived they were shut in a room in the airport with no information, their passports taken from them, and with very little food and water provided.

“We arrived in the Philippines for a holiday on March 8; there was nothing advised by the government that it was unsafe to travel, but on March 14 it was officially recommended that anyone overseas should travel back home,” Rosie said.

“On March 24 we managed to get on the last flight out of the Philippines to Dubai, where we had a connecting flight to London, but when we got to Dubai we found out all flights were cancelled, which was sooner than we thought they were going to be. We had been under the impression Dubai was shutting down on March 26.

“When we arrived at the airport we were taken to the arrivals terminal to wait. They took our passports off us. After 48 hours we still had no update on our luggage but they were not giving it back.”

Rosie said some people stranded at the airport had got medication in their suitcases that they were not allowed access to.

“I think we got our first bit of food given to us about 11 hours after we arrived and that was a muffin and a can of pop and then some noodles,” she said.

Rosie said it had been difficult to find out information, being told different things by different people give us different information, and only hearing about food provisions on the grapevine.

She said the pair had been frustrated that they were stranded in another country when they are both key workers who could have been helping their colleagues back in the UK.

“They are under so much pressure and need as many hands as they can get to help with this global pandemic and we feel so helpless because we are just stuck here,” Rosie said last week. Rosie said those stranded were all tested for coronavirus while they were waiting to be flown home.