The tour operator had joined forces with Twickenham-based travel agency Crusader Travel, to collect donations, which it then flew to the Greek island on the last charter flight of the season, with no passengers except for Sunvil’s managing director Chris Wright (pictured).

Ahead of the flight Wright said:  “It’s something you can’t turn your back on, and it’s the right thing to do.”

The donations will now be distributed by the Red Cross and local refugee support groups.

Shona Lyons of Crusader Travel, who had already launched her own charitable campaign, said last month that she decided to team up with Sunvil after reading in TTG about the company’s attempt to use its planes to bring the refugees to Britain.

“I contacted Noel [Josephides, Sunvil chairman] because we work quite a lot with them.

"We said ‘well, if you can’t bring them back in on your flight we can always do a collection for you’ because we’ve been inundated and we know that there’s a huge amount of people out there who want to help and all they’re looking for is how they can help.”

Josephides said the decision was “a reaction from the heart”. “We’re doing it because of an impulse to help,” he told TTG. “As far as we’re concerned we’ve got to help and that’s all there is to it.”