Furious passengers allegedly tried to rip open a door to get their luggage after a 12 hour nightmare.
TUI customers snapped at Birmingham Airport after a nightmare wait for their luggage after returning from a four hour flight from Turkey - which was diverted 150 miles to the Midlands.
After finally landing at 3am this morning the Catherine Arnold and her partner Tom faced another four-hour wait for their luggage to be unloaded and then grab another transport back to Norwich.
Police were called in to calm tempers while some desperate to get home even resorted to booking taxis despite the distance involved, BirminghamLive reports.
TUI admitted it had let down passengers after a video of the incident circulated online.
Catherine Arnold, 40, said some passengers were left sleeping on the floor, while some even tried to force open a door to fetch their own luggage after growing tired of waiting.
She said: "We were already delayed by over four hours by the time we got on the flight," said Catherine, who was travelling with her partner Tom, 41.
"The stewardess came on and said we couldn't fly back to Norwich anymore because it was too late at night, so we'd be diverting to Birmingham. There were a lot of moans and groans.
"When we got to Birmingham to go and fetch our suitcases, the bags didn't come out. It was horrendous because there were no staff in the room. We were stuck in there for four hours in total with pretty much no communication."
Travellers had just boarded in the early hours of Saturday morning, July 9 when they were told the plane would be taking them to Birmingham instead.
But after landing at BHX, holidaymakers faced another long wait to receive their bags. TUI apologised to customers in a text, citing a ramp failure for the delay.
Catherine added: "There was no TUI rep there until around 7am and we landed at 3.20am. It was bad enough for us - everyone was tired and fed up - but there were people there with young children.
"I saw one woman begging for her pushchair for her baby, saying: 'I don't care about my bags, please can I just have my pushchair, I can't hold her anymore'. She had to lie her little one down to sleep on the floor in the end."
Footage captured by Catherine showed a crowd of frustrated passengers questioning a TUI worker over the hold-up and demanding answers as to who was responsible.
The angry passenger explained the situation was made worse by the fact the only way to buy food or drink in the baggage hall was from a vending machine which only took coins or small notes - while the only accessible ATM machine was only dispensing £20s.
"A guy from TUI turned up at the 11th hour and even then we weren't told much," said Catherine.
"When we finally got out, we were told there would be coaches waiting for us, but when we got outside there were only about six taxis there. The majority of us were left standing on the kerb for up to an hour.
"People started to get a bit fed up at that point and it got quite heated. The police came over and were trying to diffuse the situation.
"There was one couple I really felt for. They were probably in their 60s and the gentleman had late-stage cancer. They ended up paying for their own taxi home because he clearly wasn't well and they'd had enough of waiting.
"We should have been home and in bed by midnight but we only walked through the door at midday. Quite laughably, TUI sent us an email to say sorry and to offer us a £150 voucher off our next TUI holiday, which I thought was a kick in the teeth. We'll never be flying with TUI again after this."
TUI said passengers on the TOM713 were entitled to claim EU 261 compensation and would receive an extra gesture of goodwill for their inconvenience. The airline said an investigation would be carried out into the precise cause of the delays.
A spokesman said: "We’re really sorry to customers travelling on TOM713 from Dalaman to Norwich Airport, which was initially delayed due to an earlier flight delay because of bad weather. We then had to divert the aircraft to Birmingham Airport due to the curfew at Norwich Airport.
"Delays with baggage reclaim and transfers at Birmingham meant customers were unfortunately waiting at the airport much longer than they should have. We're investigating how this happened to prevent it from happening again.
"We've arranged transport for all customers who are now on their way back to Norwich and we've been in contact with them to apologise, explain how to claim compensation and provide a gesture of goodwill.
"We realise this isn't the level of service our customers usually receive and for that, we are sorry."
