Angry holidaymakers have caught on video the moment police were drafted in to tell them the flight they'd already waited eight hours for had been cancelled - and so was their holiday. Officers told the crowd which had gathered around them at Manchester Airport they would not be able to travel to the Greek island of Kos for half term.
The video taken by Jayesh Patel shows one police officer saying: "You won't be going today. But what is happening is this; you are going to be getting a full refund." His words were greeted with ironic jeers by some, while other angry and exhausted passengers shouted at each other to let the officer speak.
"There will also be a 350 euro - per person - compensation and you will get that within 14 days," the officer continued. "You will also get a £200 holiday voucher."
READ MORE: TUI says it will cancel six flights every day at Manchester Airport in June
His words were again met with more ironic laughs by passengers as he appears to raise his hand in embarrassment at the note he is reading from. Some shouted "no" in disgust at the thought of booking again.
"Due to operational reasons and they won't tell me what those operational reasons are, you've all seen it on the news, it's obviously not just this airline and I assume that's what it is in relation to," the officer added. You can read about why airlines have cancelled flights here.
The officer concluded: "Very shortly, you're all going to get taken down to the baggage reclaim where you'll all get your bags back and then you can make your way out of the airport." People could then be heard in the clip asking the officers "how shortly?" as others shouted "we want to go home".
The passengers, who were spoken to by the police as they waited at the boarding gate, had already endured a nightmare eight-hour wait at the airport. This included a gruelling four-hour wait to get through check-in and security, which was then followed by a four-hour flight delay "waiting for a pilot", reports the MEN.
Some had already been sent text messages from TUI to say that the holiday had been cancelled as they waited at the boarding gate. Passengers described the situation as "utter, utter chaos".
The troubled flight out of Terminal 2 was supposed to take off at 3.45pm, but angry ticketholders said they would have missed the flight - if it had been on time - due to queues "out of the building" to check-in. After enduring a further four-hour delay, one family said they were informed by a text from TUI that their trip, including flights and an all-inclusive hotel, were cancelled.
Helen, from Sale, was due to travel with her husband and teenage daughter. "It's utter, utter chaos," she said. "There has been hardly any staff here. Everyone got a text from TUI saying their holidays have been cancelled and to go home.
"The check-in girls knew nothing, we found out before they did. And they were left to deal with hundreds of passengers complaining, a full flight's worth.
"The police had to come in and make an announcement, a holiday maker was arrested and was in handcuffs. We have had to go back through security, show our passports, even though we'd never left the airport.
"I wouldn't expect this from Manchester Airport and certainly not from TUI. It's just disgusting.
"All the passengers are really angry, there's children crying. We've taken the week off work, my daughter is off school - she'd been looking forward to this holiday, bought new clothes and everything.
"We expected it to be bad at Manchester Airport but everyone is in shock at how bad it actually is. The police had to unload people's suitcases because there were no staff to do it."
Mr Patel, from Manchester, was due to travel on the same flight to Kos with his wife and their three children, aged nine, 12 and 13. "We arrived at the airport three hours before our flight, as advised, and the queue for the baggage at T2 was all along the sky bridge up to terminal one," he said.
"We got through security pretty quickly, but we only had about 20 minutes to go before our flight was due to fly. The first time we found out our flight had been delayed by another three hours was when we got to the departure lounge - at no stage did anyone tell us our flight was going to be delayed.
"At around 6pm, they gave us £5 vouchers to buy food but we've still got them as the shops were all so busy or had just began to close. At 7.48pm, we received a text to tell us our entire holiday had been cancelled. There was nobody at the airport to speak to, but there was a lot of upset and frustration as we all received the text at the same time.
"We all then had to go back through passport control, which was ironic as we hadn't gone anywhere, and back into arrivals to wait for our luggage which was already on the plane. Because the airplane hadn't arrived from anywhere, our flight wasn't listed at any of the baggage carousels so we didn't know where to wait - people were visibly upset and children were crying. We then had to wait another couple of hours and at this point, we'd spent the whole day at the airport and just wanted to leave."
A spokesperson for TUI said: "We would like to apologise for the inconvenience to our customers on flight TOM2680 from Manchester and Kos, on Saturday 28th May 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."
