Airlines strand passengers who partied on flight without masks

It was promoted as a New Year’s Eve celebration in Cancún, Mexico — a six-night trip that included parties with open bars and a day exploring Tulum, a popular tourist destination in the Yucatán Peninsula known for its ancient ruins and the turquoise water of its beaches.

It would begin with a privately chartered plane from Montreal where the guests — a coterie of Canadian social media influencers, reality TV personalities and others — would be entertained by a DJ on the flight to Mexico.

But the trip has turned into a fiasco, with airlines shunning the group and stranding many of its members and the Canadian authorities vowing to investigate after videos of the passengers surfaced on social media showing them flouting Canada’s Covid-19 restrictions.