British airline Flybe abruptly shut down Thursday, causing chaos for passengers who were slated to travel on the airline and leading the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority as well as train and bus services to step in to try to mitigate the upheaval.

Flybe collapsed Thursday amid drops in demand caused by the new coronavirus.

Northern Ireland resident Xenia Pestova Bennett, 40, was briefly stranded in Bournemouth, England, after a concert. Bennett was about to check out of her hotel room and head to the airport when she received a text telling her not to bother.

The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement Thursday that "All Flybe flights are cancelled. Please do not go to the airport as your Flybe flight will not be operating.”

"FlyBe are not giving us money back or rebooking us, and I have about 10 flights booked with them for the rest of the spring, which will now be lost," she told USA TODAY. "That’s thousands of pounds gone."

Lekan Ojookiji Abasi, who was due to catch a flight from Belfast to Manchester en route to visit his mother in Nigeria, turned up at the airport — only to learn the bad news.

"I arrived here at about 4.25 a.m. and the whole place was empty," he said. "I couldn’t believe it."

In response to the shutdown, the Civil Aviation Authority is offering free travel to Flybe staff and customers over the next week, as are Britain's train operators. Bennett ultimately managed to get to London, though she will need to get home from there.

Other airlines and operators are offering help for customers in need, including Megabus and British Airways.

But passengers who were booked on the airline expressed confusion and concern as they tried to sort through their options.

"Currently stranded in Amsterdam courtesy of @flybe going into administration," Twitter user @AndyWalker251 wrote. "Trying to figure out how to get back to Exeter airport."

"Currently stranded in channel islands. Thanks flybe," user @MartinW58 wrote.

Other Twitter users have shown grace and offered assistance to those stranded.

@officialkappa99 wrote to Flybe's crew specifically: "I know this won't get you to where you want to be, but if you end up stranded and it gets you closer, I am driving from Glasgow to Leeds tomorrow around 12 noon tomorrow. I will be driving from Leeds back to Glasgow on Friday, again around noon. Space for 3."

Flybe’s fall highlights the damage that the virus outbreak has had on the airline industry, which has cut back on flights around the world as people avoid flying out of precaution.

Airlines have struggled after a spike in new coronavirus cases were reported in Italy, South Korea and Iran, spooking vacationers and sparking the cancellation of business trips.

The International Air Transport Association said January saw the slowest monthly year-over-year growth since April 2010 – and that was before the main impact of the virus outbreak. United Airlines said it will freeze hiring and ask employees to volunteer for unpaid leave as it struggles with weak demand. Finnair is enforcing temporary layoffs for some 6,000 staff.

The disruption is having the biggest effect on companies that were perceived as already weak financially. Norwegian Air Shuttle, which has struggled to maintain the costs of operating a low-budget business model on long-haul transatlantic flights, has seen its shares slide 55% since the start of the virus outbreak, including a 12% drop Thursday.

Flybe’s network included more than half of British domestic flights outside of London. Europe’s largest regional carrier, Flybe had a major presence at airports such as Aberdeen, Belfast City, Manchester and Southampton, and flew some 9 million passengers a year.

Its links to some difficult-to-reach spots in the U.K. were a strong selling point for the government. But the government’s efforts were dogged by allegations from competitors that it had provided state aid to Flybe.

“This is a sad day for UK aviation and we know that Flybe’s decision to stop trading will be very distressing for all of its employees and customers,” the chief executive of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, Richard Moriarty, said.

A consortium of Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital bought Flybe in February 2019. Known as Connect Airways, it paid just 2.2 million pounds for Flybe’s assets but pledged to inject cash into the airline to turn it around.

Flybe has struggled with a series of issues, including the weakening of the pound in light of Britain’s pending departure from the European Union. The weaker pound hurts airlines like Flybe that have significant costs in dollars but take in revenue in pounds.

The airline also was struggling to pay its airline passenger duty, a tax on flights that many airline groups have long complained restricts growth.

It is the second U.K.-based airline in six months to fail after Thomas Cook went bust in September.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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