A holidaymaker has lambasted TUI after they were told a plane wouldn't be leaving Glasgow Airport - after passengers were forced to wait over three hours at the gate.
Chris McGill, from Falkirk, was travelling with the travel operator to Dalaman from Glasgow yesterday afternoon with his family for a much-needed break.
He claims TUI gave passengers two different explanations for the flight being delayed for take-off - which has led him to believe that the "flight was always going to be cancelled".
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He told Glasgow Live: "We arrived at the airport at normal time for check in, everything went fine, security wasn't busy at all. The gate was announced at 5.10pm for the 5.55pm flight. Once there we started queueing to get on the plane. At 5.45pm the doors still hadn't opened and the tannoy announced that there was lost paperwork so boarding would commence in 20 minutes.
"After 20 minutes they then said on the tannoy that it was a technical fault and it would take another 20 minutes. 45 minutes later they said the engineer was still trying to fix the technical fault in the cockpit and would update at 7.30pm. No update until 8.10pm.
"They then said they would make a final decision at 9pm on whether we were flying or not. At 9.12pm they told us to go to baggage reclaim, we got a £7 food voucher and find out what would happen next.
"They also annoyed saying everyone with duty free had to return it for a refund. We got our bags back and went to check in to see what was happening. We were told the flight was on night lock and they couldn't guarantee a flight the next day. If we wanted a hotel we had to wait until about 11pm.
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"Luckily my brother in law was on his way to pick us up, so we arrived home just before 11pm. We then got a text from TUI saying there wasn't any hotels so everyone had to go home. At 8am this morning we received an email saying our new flight time is 4.50pm today and we can collect a £15 food voucher at check in today.
"We saw on Flighttracker last night that the plane left Glasgow at 10.42pm and went to Cardiff. Also, we saw no cabin crew or pilot enter or exit the plane at any point yesterday which is making us think the flight was always going to be cancelled."
It comes after a similar incident on Sunday saw TUI cancel a flight as passengers waited to board a plane from Glasgow Airport bound for Antalya, leaving "lots of heartbroken and understandably angry families".
In response, a TUI spokeswoman said: "We’re incredibly sorry to those customers who have been impacted by the recent disruption to our operations. We understand that last minute delays and 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.
"We can confirm flight TOM806 from Glasgow to Dalaman, Turkey, was unfortunately delayed on Thursday 2 June due to operational issues. Customers were notified via email and text messages, provided overnight accommodation and offered meals and refreshments. We’ve notified them of their revised departure time as soon as possible, and the flight is expected to depart this afternoon.
"We’d like to reassure customers that the vast majority of our flights are operating as planned, and we apologise again for the inconvenience caused."
