Last minute flight cancellations, 'three hour' waits for baggage and long queues. These are just some of the issues many holidaymakers have faced in airports across the UK this week.
And according to experts, we won't see the end of these delays anytime soon. Good Morning Britain's in-house expert, Simon Calder, said this week that those travelling over the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend will face similar problems to those experienced last weekend - with problems set to get worse during the school summer holidays. Read more about that here.
Read more: Two hundred Cardiff Airport bound passengers stuck at airport in Spain after ‘baggage handler gaffe’
On Wednesday, UK Government Transport Secretary Grant Shapps set up a crunch meeting with senior aviation leaders to discuss the "exceptional disruption" seen across UK airports. During what was said to be a "productive" meeting with airports, airlines and ground handling companies, Mr Shapps emphasised his concerns that airline passengers were being "unfairly sold tickets for holidays they cannot go on".
This was the case for a group of devastated holidaymakers in Cardiff, whose TUI flight was cancelled as they boarded a plane set to travel to Tenerife. Jonny McClelland from Swansea alongside his wife Jemma were planning on taking their daughters - seven-year old Nuala and five-year-old Connie on their "first trip abroad".
However, it was not meant to be as their flight, which was supposed to take off at 12.15pm, was delayed for an hour before they were told that their journey to the Spanish island was in fact cancelled due to operational issues. "So we queued up, and we were literally at the door of the cabin, when my phone went off and it was a message from TUI," Jonny explained.
"It was basically saying: 'Your flight is cancelled, your package holiday is cancelled'. The air hostess looked shocked, because she didn't even know that. The pilot didn't know it."
Despite looking at alternative flights that "weren't feasible", Jonny and his family decided to return home. According to Jonny, his two young daughters were left "crying the whole way home".
Meanwhile, holidaymaker Huw Davies, from Porthcawl, boarded the flight to Tenerife from the airport with 11 other family members for a "special holiday" for his daughter who is terminally ill. He said the sudden news of the cancellation left them "absolutely devastated" and that his children and grandchildren were in tears. "This was a family outing for my daughter who has terminal cancer. It was going to be her last family holiday - and we just got booted off this flight," said the 59-year-old.
In response TUI apologised for the cancellation which it said was due to operational issues, adding that customers affected by flight cancellations will receive a full refund for their holiday within 14 days.
Similar complications took place at Manchester Airport. Manchester Evening News has reported that holidaymakers have experiencing long delays and queues, with many sharing their frustration on social media.
At around 2.30am, @RuinousHugh said he had been waiting for two hours to collect his bags from Terminal 1. "Why the hell can't you sort this out?", he tweeted Manchester Airport.
Philip Bennett also tweeted a picture from a crowded baggage reclaim hall in Terminal 3. He said: "Manchester airport Terminal 3 baggage reclaim. 3:15am. People waiting over three hours for bags. Shocking. Not an employee in sight. Welcome to Britain."
They have also been reports of queues extending into car parks , missing baggage spotted from 1,300 miles away, police rescues after flights failed to take off and even food shortages for those passengers actually able to board their flights.
It is said that nearly 332,000 passengers have booked to fly through Manchester Airport over the Jubilee weekend. Those passengers as well as those across the UK may be considering what the last week of airport chaos may mean for them.
More than 150 UK flights were cancelled on Wednesday alone, marking the eve of the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend. 377 flights have been axed in the last seven days, according to aviation data firm Cirium.
Over in Bristol, over 300,000 customers are expected to travel through the airport over the half term holiday period, with up to 30,000 customers flying on some days. The airport also saw queues stretching out of the terminal earlier this week, with people waiting in the early hours of the morning.
On Tuesday night the airport issued an apology about baggage delays as some customers saw reported 'two hour' delays to receive their luggage. But other passengers reported a smooth journey through the airport on Thursday.
The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) has said part of the issue was that passengers were assuming they had to arrive very early for flights and had begun queuing from the early hours. See more about the reasons behind the chaos here.
“The challenge for us as an industry is to explain to people not to turn up much earlier than they need to," a spokesperson said. “A lot of it is to do with perception, rather than reality.” TUI declined to put a figure on the number of disrupted flights over the weekend, but said a combination of factors had caused disruption.
But early-attending passengers might not be the only issues facing airports. MyLondon has reported eyewitnesses seeing disgruntled cabin crew 'handing in their notice' amid chaotic scenes at Gatwick Airport over the weekend. The situation was reportedly so dire that people claim stewards and pilots were flown in from Heathrow Airport on Monday (May 30) to help out, only to find that the flight had been cancelled.
Recruitment shortages to roles such as security staff, ground handlers and check-in staff are leading to the mayhem with passengers being told to arrive much earlier than normal for their flights because they are facing long queues. A lot of staff in the aviation sector were let go during the pandemic due to collapse in demand but now airlines are struggling to meet the increased pressure following a surge in bookings for the first Covid-free summer since 2019.
Such shortage has had a potential impact on British Airways and easyJet, who have had to remove thousands of flights from schedules in recent months at Gatwick and Heathrow airports. But after the meeting with aviation bosses this week, Mr Shapps warned that the scenes witnessed over the last few days can't happen again over summer.
"We’re grateful to those airlines and operators who have continued to deliver good services despite the current pressures and we recognise that not all operators have been affected in the same way," he said.
"I also understand the resourcing strains on the aviation sector but it does not excuse poor planning and overbooking flights that they cannot service. The companies who have seen the most disruption need to learn from those who ran services smoothly.
"We will continue to monitor the situation closely to make sure consumers don’t lose out from any further disruption." To get more news from across Wales subscribe to our newsletters here.
