Passengers in tears as TUI cancels flight by text after huge airport delays

Lesley Copp and her fellow passengers were made to wait two hour for their bags to be returned to them when their TUI flight to Kefalonia in Greece was cancelled via text

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Manchester Airport: Passengers face cancelled flights

Lesley Copp was one of a group of pensioners who spent a long and miserable day at Manchester Airport on Sunday.

After a four-hour delay to their flight, they were moved from one gate to another before a chorus on text tones suddenly filled the departure hall.

Their flight to Kefalonia in Greece had been cancelled, meaning they were left to wait two hours for their luggage to be returned to them before trudging outside where promised coaches never materialised.

Lesley, who made it to a Manchester hotel where TUI have been putting up disappointed guests ahead of the reschedule flight tomorrow morning via taxi, said she was “tired, fed up, jaded, stressed and upset.”

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“The whole thing has been a total lack of communication,” she told The Mirror.

“There are four of us in our seventies and we have our seven-year-old grandson. Two of our party have given up and gone home, as one of them has heart problems.

“TUI tells me if we’re all on one booking, either everyone cancels or they won’t get their money back.

“We’re left in the hotel. The airport was full of people with no clue what was happened. There were flights to Turkey and Pathos flights cancelled, and hundreds of people milling round.

“Little children burst into tears. A couple of kids had meltdowns.”

Lesley and her group were far from the only people to be disappointed prior to heading off abroad yesterday.

A “devastated” mum told how her family’s holiday was cancelled after an overbooked TUI flight led to an 11-hour delay.

Mum Emma, 39, said her youngest son “broke down” in the airport after finding out their long-awaited trip to Turkey had been called off at the last minute.

The little boy asked his mum “why did the naughty aeroplane people cancel our holiday?” after hearing the bad news.

The family-of-ten had planned to fly out at around 2pm last Friday for their first break since the pandemic.

Arriving in plenty of time at Manchester Airport, they were quickly through check-in and security, but then discovered their departure was delayed by two hours. Eventually they were called to the gate, but then found it would be another two-hour wait.

Finally, they were told the flight had been overbooked and people were reportedly asked to volunteer to leave. When not enough passengers put their hands up, Emma said the flight was cancelled.

Deciding to wait in the airport for another flight, the family then received a text message from TUI at 2.15am saying they would not be going on holiday.

Emma said: “We were devastated, we haven’t had a holiday in two years like so many other people.”

People coming into the airport also had a tough time of it, sharing videos of “hundreds” of suitcases that had been “abandoned” in the luggage hall.

Many say they waited hours for their own bags to be returned to them with many unable to collect it.

Dawn Brian, from Stoke-on-trent, landed in Manchester at around 9.50pm last night from Palma de Menorca.

She told MEN : “We were already worrying about what we were going to encounter when we landed but it was just utter chaos.

“We were waiting for our luggage for two hours and the belt on the carousel hadn’t even moved at all. It was horrendous.”

A spokesperson for TUI said: “We’d like to apologise to customers travelling on flight TOM2680 from Manchester to Kefalonia which was unable to depart as planned on Sunday 29 May due to operational issues.

“All impacted customers were offered welfare vouchers, overnight accommodation and meals while we worked through a new flight plan. We were in regular contact with customers and advised them of their new departure time as soon as we could.

“Customers have now been given a new flight departure time and have the option to either amend or cancel their holiday and receive a full refund within 14 days.

“We understand that our customers have been looking forward to these holidays, as it’s the first peak period in more than two years that hasn’t been impacted by border closures and mass testing requirements.