Frustrated passengers tried to "rip open a door" to get their luggage after a 12-hour nightmare.
Tensions began to rise amongst TUI passengers after their original flight home from Dalaman, Turkey to Norwich, Norfolk, was delayed for four hours before being diverted 150miles away to the Midlands. But the nightmare continued when they finally landed after 3am on July 9 and faced a four-hour wait for their luggage.
Having landed in Birmingham, they were told they would need to wait for transport back to Norwich - the original destination, BirminghamLive reports. But as passengers became increasingly frustrated, some booked their own taxis home, despite the distance, in desperate attempts to get back.
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Video footage captured the moment angry passengers approached an airline rep in Birmingham airport's baggage hall after waiting for hours for their bags. Police were said to be involved in a bid to calm rising tempers.
Catherine Arnold, 40, travelling with her partner Tom, said police were there to "diffuse the situation" and some passengers even resorted to sleeping on the floor, while some tried to force open the door to their own luggage. One man in his 60's, who had late stage cancer, had no choice but to get a taxi home with his wife after a long wait.
She said: "We were already delayed by over four hours by the time we got on the flight. 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."
She went on to say a TUI rep was not to be seen until 7am the morning they landed, despite arriving at the airport for 3.20am. She added 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, but the only accessible ATM machine was dispensing £20 notes.
Catherine added: "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 and an investigation would be carried out into the cause of the delays.
A spokesperson added: "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."
It comes after reports of travel chaos in airports right across the UK with cancelled flights, long delays and huge queues at luggage collection and airport security. TUI has previously issued advice for people travelling this summer which included not arriving too early.
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