A family have spoken out about their nightmare attempt to get from Manchester to Turkey with TUI - only for their whole holiday to be cancelled.
Karen Bhalla, 32, arrived at Manchester Airport with her husband, son, mum and mother-in-law on Sunday morning (29 May) hoping to fly to Antalya for the week. But after spending two days at the airport, and a night in a hotel, they still weren't able to get away for the school holidays.
The M.E.N understands that the airline even sought the help of an Air Tanker plane - which is primarily used for military and humanitarian operations - but it wasn't able to fly.
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Speaking to the M.E.N, the mum-of-one from Warrington says the family have now wasted a week's worth of annual leave, and two days trapped in Manchester Airport - with no holiday to show for it.
The latest horror story comes as TUI announced they would be cancelling six flights a day, 186 in total, from Manchester Airport between May 31 and June 30 to tackle staff shortages and 'ongoing disruption.'
"It's been absolutely awful," Karen said. "We went on Sunday to Manchester Airport where the queues through security were really bad, but we got through and still had time to spare.
"Then literally two hours before our flight TUI sent us a text saying it had been cancelled. They gave no explanation why and we didn't know what to do. There was nobody around to ask or help us.
"They then sent us a message to say we’d be taken out of the airport and to a hotel. We waited outside Manchester Airport for a coach for over an hour and nothing came."
Karen said eventually she and her husband decided to book a taxi to the hotel, which was in Manchester city centre, where they were told to await further news about a rescheduled flight.
"The food they provided at the hotel was literally potato and vegetables, we were all starving," she said. "They sent us a text message that night saying our flight was at 7.30am.
"Then they sent another message at midnight saying it had already been delayed until 11.30am. We decided to get a taxi there because I didn’t trust that the coach was going to turn up."
The family say they had to go through check-in and security for the second time on Monday (30 May), but claimed when they arrived at the boarding gate there was no TUI staff member in sight.
Karen said: "We waited for an hour and nobody turned up. Then Swissport arrived and told us we needed to go this military-style plane. That took another two hours because they said they needed to clean the plane.
"They finally put us on a bus to the aircraft but when we got there the pilot was shouting 'no, no, no' and we were taken back to the airport. They trapped us inside these barriers where there was nowhere to sit or go to the toilet.
"The next thing police arrived and were saying it was unsafe. They took us back to the gate and said we couldn’t leave. There were children sitting crying on the floor. We were there all day."
Karen said they were finally told there was no flight for them and that they could go back or home or go to a hotel and wait for a flight the next day. The family decided to go home where they claim they received a text at 8pm on Monday night informing them that the whole holiday had been cancelled.
"I have honestly never seen anything in my life like it," she said. They have said they will give us a full refund and some compensation but it's not good enough because we’ve lost our holiday and two whole days at the airport. I am a teacher so I am off work but my son is back to school next week and my husband had to take time off work.
"We are just going to see if we can try and go another time. They are trying to tempt us with £200 off our next holiday but they must be joking if they think I’m booking with them again."
A spokesperson from TUI said: "We’re incredibly sorry to those customers who have been impacted by the recent disruption to our operations. We understand that last minute cancellations are incredibly disappointing and we would like to reassure our customers that we are doing everything we can to get them on holiday as planned.
"Whilst every cancellation is regrettable, the vast majority of our flights are operating as planned, with more than 26,000 customers taking off yesterday on holiday. We’d like to apologise again for the inconvenience caused and we thank customers for their understanding."
