A mum says she was traumatised when her teenage son was "stranded" in Benidorm after his TUI flight was cancelled.
Ryan Egginton-Pope, 18, was on holiday with his friends Brandon Burton and Ben Cowley, both 19, in Benidorm for their first trip away without their parents. The three friends, all from the Wirral, had a “great time” staying at the Hotel Port Fiesta Park, spending their week abroad parasailing, jet biking and partying.
They were due to fly home from Alicante to Manchester Airport at 7am on Tuesday, May 31. But at 8.45pm the evening before, they received a text from TUI saying their flight had been cancelled.
READ MORE: Tui chaos sees family board 3 planes before holiday cancelled
Ryan, Brandon and Ben were told not to take the transfer to the airport and to wait for information. They heard nothing from TUI and were left stranded in Benidorm with no hotel room, money or assistance from the TUI team.
Anna Egginton-Murray, Ryan’s mum, said: “Being stuck at the end absolutely ruined the holiday for them. They’re just nice lads and really hard working.
“They were so excited for their holiday. They’d been talking about going on holiday together since they were 14. We’d been worried that they’d get drunk or have an accident but the thing that let us down was the trusted company that they went with.”
The holiday was Ryan's 18th birthday present in March and he rushed to book the tickets the very next day.
At midday on May 31, Ryan phoned the TUI 24-hour helpline. He was told that they’d missed the replacement flight, which had left at 11am and that they should make their own arrangements to travel home.
Anna got a phone call from her son to tell her what had happened. She said: “He’s a very strong and resilient young man but they didn’t know what time they would get home or how they would get home.
“They were essentially left on the streets. It was absolutely appalling.”
Anna, who works in the NHS, went to the TUI store in Cheshire Oaks and after two hours of phone calls, the store manager was able to confirm that the boys had been “missed off” the communications list in a system error and hadn’t been notified about the rescheduled flight.
She said the next available TUI flight home for the boys was on Saturday, June 4. Instead Ryan paid 450 euros for a flight home for the three of them with EasyJet, finally arriving back in Manchester at 3am on Wednesday, June 1.
Anna said: “They were absolutely exhausted when they landed in Manchester and they’d spent all of their money.
“It was really traumatic as a parent because we couldn't do anything and didn’t know how we were going to get them home.”
Ryan was told he’d be reimbursed for the EasyJet flight within seven to 14 days but, as of June 24, has still not received his compensation for funding his own flight home. The 18-year-old works as a support worker and the later flight caused him to miss work.
TUI said in a statement: “We would like to apologise to Mr Burton and his party for their experience. Unfortunately, due to operational issues we took the decision to cancel the customers flight from Alicante to Manchester on Monday May 30.
“We aim to communicate with customers as quickly as we can if there are any changes to their holiday and offer transport, overnight accommodation, meals and refreshments as needed. On this occasion, the customers decided to source their own flights home with an alternative carrier.
“We can confirm that our teams are processing Mr Burton’s forms and will be refunding the cost of the flights back to the customers as soon as possible. We understand how frustrating and disappointing this will have been and are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.”
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