A five-year-old girl has told her mum that she doesn't want to go on holiday "ever again" thanks to their holiday nightmare.
Kim McManus, 40, from Widnes, Cheshire, was meant to fly out to Turkey on Friday for her daughter's first-ever holiday abroad.
They were told their flight had been delayed for five hours due to overbooking while they were standing in the queue at Manchester Airport, the Liverpool Echo reports.
But less than an hour later their package holiday was completely cancelled, with holiday provider TUI telling them over text.
Mum-of-one Kim said her daughter Autumn was left "so shocked" by the incident that she "broke down sobbing" after hearing her dream holiday was cancelled.
Kim didn't tell her daughter that the whole holiday had been cancelled straightaway and said she spent a sleepless night dreading how to break the news in the morning.
"We had to get there early because of traffic issues, and then the flight was delayed by about five hours," Kim told the ECHO.
"We were all queueing up to get on the plane when they came around to everybody and said that the flight had been overbooked by 13 people.
"Six people hadn't shown up so there were now seven people too many.
"They were asking people to volunteer to not fly but without the guarantee of another flight at all in the next week.
"Nobody was going to take that so we waited for another hour and then they came over the tannoy and said that the cabin crew have now gone over their allotted hours and therefore the flight would now be cancelled.
"I was so shocked. It's my first holiday in seven years and it's my little girl's first holiday ever.
"She just broke down sobbing, saying 'please mummy please you said there was only one more sleep'.
"She was just absolutely devastated."
Kim said they were advised to go home or to a hotel, with the airport telling them they would be messaged with all the details for their new flight the next morning.
She added: "I left the airport and went home, but within an hour they'd sent everybody a text message saying that your flight has now been cancelled and if you've booked a package holiday then your holiday has now been cancelled too.
"After I got that message I was so shaken up I couldn't believe it.
"I was thinking that they can't do this, they can't just cancel my whole holiday because they've messed up a flight, especially when we hadn't seen a representative from TUI the whole time."
The distraught mum put her daughter to bed but said she was unable to sleep, dreading having to wake up and tell her daughter the trip had been cancelled.
She said: "I still haven't got an answer for my little girl. I don't know why they cancelled it, it was so cruel.
"It broke my heart, I was crying to my own mum."
A spokesperson for Tui said: "We would like to apologise for the inconvenience to our customers on flight TOM856 from Manchester to Antalya, on Friday, May 27, who were delayed to a combination of factors causing significant operational disruption.
"Unfortunately, we felt the impact to customers holiday was too great and took the difficult decision to cancel the flight.
"We contacted affected customers as soon as we became aware of the change and all customers will receive a full refund within 14 days.
"We understand how disappointing and frustrating this is and we do apologise for any inconvenience caused."
