A gran has slammed TUI after a lost case "completely ruined" her holiday to celebrate her brother-in-law's 70th birthday. Julie Hibbert, 61, was left without vital medication after her baggage on a trip to Turkey went missing - and still hasn't been found five weeks later.
Mrs Hibbert, from Denton, went on a trip with her partner John and sister Sheila Rhodes to celebrate her brother-in-law Wilf's 70th birthday, with the four flying out to Dalaman for ten days on May 27. The trip got off to a rocky start, after the check-in systems failed, leaving staff to write out boarding passes by hand.
Whilst the rest of her party picked up their suitcases when they landed, Mrs Hibbert was left waiting until the conveyor belts ground to a screeching halt. She was "absolutely devastated" and facing the prospect of starting her holiday without any luggage, which included her medication for a stroke she suffered last November.
Mrs Hibbert told the MEN: "The conveyor belts stopped and there was quite a few of us, probably around 15 people, waiting for their cases so I said to my sister that her and her husband should go through and wait on the coaches and me and my partner waited. No cases came through so we got in touch with someone and filled out some forms.
"By the time we got down to the car park it was gone 9pm. We should have been in the resort at 3.15pm but we'd been delayed at so many points.
"The coach had had to go so we were left there with nothing and didn't know where to go. We found a TUI rep and told him and he got us a taxi but we had to wait because there was another fight coming in and another couple on it. Eventually they told us to go and we got to the resort at 10.45pm so that was a day missed.
"I had nothing, I didn't even have a toothbrush or a hairbrush. I had a mini stroke in November and I didn't put my medication in my hand luggage so I didn't have that either, that was my fault I know. My holiday was spent at the reception desk talking to people there to find my case."
Mrs Hibbert was initially told the case would be with her in two days, by day four she had no case, and hadn't heard from a TUI representative either. She eventually met two travel firm workers at the resort. Eventually on the fourth day a baggage handler called to say her belongings had been found. However, Mrs Hibbert wasn't sure whether the man was based in Manchester or Turkey.
At one point, Mrs Hibbert was told her luggage was on its way and to go to reception, but after waiting two hours, no case appeared. It wasn't until day seven when the second TUI rep came to speak with her that she was told the travel firm would offer her £25 a day to buy essentials.
However, after she'd already been out to buy some changes of clothes. Mrs Hibbert added: "On day seven I called TUI again asking to speak to a rep and this lady came to the hotel that evening and asked 'can I help you' so I said well, yeah, I've been here since Friday and I've not had anything. She said 65 cases on that flight didn't come through but that doesn't help me?
"I really was disgusted, there was no empathy. I only bought the bare basics because they kept saying it shouldn't be long now, it should be here. It's just so frustrating.
"My holiday was just completely ruined and there's nothing that can bring that back, I didn't want to do anything, I didn't want to go anywhere, I just wanted my own clothes.
"I'm just not getting anywhere at all, all I heard was 'claim off your insurance' but there's my personal things, I've been saving for them for nearly two years and you can't just go our and replace them all. You're on holiday you saved all that money for your holiday to enjoy it."
Mrs Hibbert visited a pharmacy in Marmaris to try to get a replacement dose of the Fluvastatin she takes to help prevent further health complications due to her stroke last November.
However, she was told that Turkey had stopped issuing the drug a decade ago and she would be unable to get a replacement prescription until she returned to the UK. She didn't feel comfortable taking any suggested alternatives and went without the medication for the whole 10-day holiday, hoping her case would arrive.
It wasn't until the penultimate day of her holiday, when she walked down to another hotel to speak to a third rep, Mrs Hibbert finally traced her case to Manchester. Arrangements were made for her to pick up the case when she flew back home on June 6.
However, when she got to the airport, the case was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs Hibbert was eventually told that it had been flown out to Dalaman, and would be delivered to her home when it returned to Manchester.
Since then, there has been no sight of her case, and dozens of emails, calls, and messages to both airports and TUI have gone unanswered, leaving her no closer to finding her case. There is no indication as to whether her case even made it onto her initial flight, which was run by a third party airline as part of TUI's holiday package.
A spokesperson for TUI said: "We’re very sorry to hear about Mrs Hibbert’s experience with her luggage. We’ll be in touch directly with Mrs Hibbert as soon as possible to advise on how to claim her baggage from the third party airline and help resolve the issue."
A spokesperson for Corendon Airlines told the Manchester Evening News that if they had any updates on Mrs Hibbert's luggage they would contact her directly to arrange its safe return.
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