A North East mum has vowed never to holiday with TUI again after the travel giant refused to issue a refund despite arriving at her holiday destination more than 16 hours later than planned.
Stacey Young, 37, had booked a £2,000 all-inclusive holiday to Gran Canaria with her partner Steven and two young children. However, she arrived at her destination almost 17 hours later after flight TOM1424 turned back towards Newcastle on May 4, and blames a "catalogue of errors" for the delay.
Stacey, from Cullercoats, claims the plane had been in the air for two hours when it was announced it would be returning to Newcastle "somewhere over France" because the pilot had fallen ill.
Read more: TUI flight to Gran Canaria diverted back to Newcastle as crew member falls ill after take-off
On returning to the airport, passengers on the flight found that they would not be leaving until the following day, with those who needed it put up in hotels. However, Stacey says that the Hilton DoubleTree, where her family had been put up, weren't able to cope with the demand, with them unable to use the £20 food voucher that all passengers had been given and going to bed hungry.
When checking her phone in the early hours of the morning, she saw that TUI had sent an email at 12.30am informing them of their new flight time of 7.30am on May 5. Though Stacey and her family arrived at the airport on time, she suspects that some passengers may have missed the email as they were forced to wait to board the plane.
Sales advisor Stacey told ChronicleLive: "If the pilot was that ill, why did we travel a further two hours back to Newcastle when it was a four-hour flight to Gran Canaria? We could have flown the entire way and landed, had our holiday and everything would have been fine, and if the pilot had needed to go to hospital in Gran Canaria, he could have done that.
"Instead, they turned the plane around, bypassed every single hospital on the way to Newcastle, then proceeded to circle around for another half an hour burning off fuel before landing and letting all the passengers and their luggage off. At this point, nobody knew what was going on, nobody was talking to us - I just don't understand why we endured a four-and-a-half hour flight to be no further forward, and if the pilot was that bad, why didn't we land at the nearest airport so he could get to hospital?"
Despite returning to their starting point and not arriving in Gran Canaria until the following day, TUI has refused to pay compensation to Stacey and other passengers who were on the flight. They have cited European Regulation EC261/2004, which states that airlines may have to pay compensation when experiencing a delay of over three hours on arrival, but only if the delay wasn't caused by "extraordinary circumstances".
With the medical grounds of a "passenger or crew member becomes seriously ill or dies on-board at short notice before the flight" TUI have considered this as extraordinary circumstances. However, Stacey feels that the airline should accept responsibility for the flight being returned to Newcastle.
She continued: "It was classed as exceptional circumstances but we were delayed for almost 17 hours and missed a day of our holiday, how is that okay? I've always holidayed with TUI but now I'm absolutely foaming with them.
"If they'd just say yes, we understand that you've missed your holiday, it would have been okay. Holidays are expensive, families spend an entire year paying for them, and they're just saying nah, you get nothing."
And Stacey says that the hellish journey "took the shine off" their holiday. She finished: "We just wanted to get on with our holiday and enjoy it as much as we could but we felt like it had been cut short, because it had.
"We felt a little bit rushed because we felt pressured to go on an excursion as we arrived, rather than have time to settle in. Although we enjoyed our holiday, of course we did, it just took the shine off it."
A TUI spokeswoman said: "We’d like to apologise to customers on flight TOM1424 bound for Gran Canaria which returned to Newcastle Airport shortly after take-off due to a crew member becoming seriously unwell.
"Customers were provided overnight accommodation before being contacted directly with details of the new flight details. We would also like to thank customers for their patience and understanding during this time.
"In exceptional circumstances, which are out of our control, we are unable to offer flight delay compensation. Therefore, we would recommend Ms Young speaks directly with her travel insurance provider to see if their policy covers for this type of flight delay."
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