Repatriation flights have brought home holidaymakers caught up by the shutting of the Guernsey air bridge.

The Manx government suspended direct flights between Ronaldsway and Guernsey with immediate effect on Friday following an outbreak of Covid-19 in the Channel island.

There were some 110 Manx residents in Guernsey when the announcement was made. They had flown in by Aurigny on the Wednesday. Some 67 Guernsey residents had flown to the Isle of Man that same day.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle said he regretted that all residents returning from Guernsey would now have to quarantine for 14 days. He said this was the ’last thing we wanted to do’ but was the safest option.

There were 104 passengers on the repatriation flight from Guernsey on Saturday night, and about 69 on the return flight from Ronaldsway which was delayed to Sunday by bad weather.

Aurigny has cancelled its remaining half-term services which had been scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) and Saturday.

Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Guernsey’s new Chief Minister, was the first to confirm the Manx government’s decision to suspend the air bridge at a press conference on Friday.

A total of eight cases of coronavirus have now been confirmed in Guernsey.

Mr Quayle told a press conference here that the Isle of Man remains Covid-free with no cases of the virus identified.

Dr Nicola Brink, Guernsey’s director of public health, said there is ’certainly transmission within our community’. ’But what we absolutely don’t have is widespread community seeding of the virus.’

She said five cases werelinked to a specific venue, one is a family member and one is a work colleague. An eight case was identified overnight Sunday/Monday as a contact who was already self-isolating.

The index case was detected through a pre-travel test and the others were all detected through the contact tracing process. All were detected before they had symptoms although some have since developed symptoms.

Deputy Ferbrache said: ’There is no reason to panic.

’There has been one cluster which is well under control. So everything going forward will be as it is now.’

Mr Quayle said given the first case identified in Guernsey had not left the island for 14 days, the outbreak must have resulted from someone getting a false negative result from a seven-day test or from someone not following self-isolation rules.

He said he hoped the air bridge could be restored as soon as possible.

The island’s director of public health Dr Henrietta Ewart said: ’So far, this does look like a contained cluster. There are no cases being identified in the community that are not related to this cluster.’