TORONTO — Sunwing Airlines sends in the first international rescue flights to repatriate over 350 Canadians stranded in Los Cabos, Mexico following Category 3 Tropical Storm Odile.

Yesterday saw the arrival of the flight at Los Cabos International Airport, bringing with it much needed food, water and medical supplies. The plane was the first repatriation service to land at the airport following its closure since Sunday when category 3, tropical storm Odile blasted the Mexican Baja California peninsula with gusts of wind of up to 125mph and over six hours of heavy rain.

At 4:05 p.m. local time, the plane departed towards Vancouver bringing with it 190 passengers (including five infants) forced to abandon their vacation after the impact of the tropical storm, which included at least 35 Canadians who had booked with another carrier.

A second service was scheduled to depart for Toronto last evening.

Yesterday, the airline had outlined its plan to bring all of its 306 customers stranded in Los Cabos home on two dedicated rescue flights; one destined for Toronto and the other to Vancouver. Both flights were operated on Boeing 737-800 aircraft with 189 passenger seats.

All of Sunwing Airlines’ outbound services from Canada to Los Cabos have been cancelled until the end of the month. Regular travel advisory updates are being posted on sunwing.ca, flysunwing.ca and signaturevacations.com.

As an additional gesture the airline will also be offering compensation to customers whose vacations were curtailed by this storm.