Furious passengers tried to 'rip open a door' to find their luggage following a 12-hour nightmare flight with TUI. Customers flew off the handle at Birmingham Airport baggage reclaim after seeing their flight home diverted 150 miles to the Midlands following a four hour delay when trying to depart from Turkey.
They finally landed just after 3am today, Saturday, July 9 - but then faced a four-hour wait for their luggage to be unloaded and another wait for transport back to Norwich, their original destination. Police were said to have been involved in calming tempers while some desperate to get home even resorted to booking taxis despite the distance involved, BirminghamLive was told.
Video footage captured the moment angry TUI passengers surrounded an airline rep in Birmingham's baggage hall after hours waiting by a carousel. The company admitted it had left down the passengers, who were offered a discount on another break. Customers said they received "no communication" from staff.
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But that was dismissed by one couple who said they would never travel with the firm again. Catherine Arnold, 40, told how passengers resorted to 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 police arrived to "diffuse the situation" outside the terminal as tensions flared while families then queued for "up to an hour" for taxis to take them back to Norwich.
"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 the TOM713 from Dalaman after a four-hour delay 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 said: "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."
Video 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. Catherine said 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. "People weren't happy.
"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 spokesperson 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."
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