A family have blasted their "holiday from hell" after they were left stranded at an airport and told they couldn't travel.
One of the group was a pregnant woman who was forced to wait without a seat for hours.
The Curtis family arrived at Luton Airport ahead of a package holiday to Turkey for a 60th birthday, but were told their holiday wouldn't be happening just 30 minutes before take-off.
The group of 11 included Shelly Curtis who was 28 weeks pregnant, and despite carrying a baby she was forced to stand and wait in Luton for hours, it's claimed.
The London family also complained that when they approached their holiday provider TUI for a refund, they were told they would not be getting one back.
Instead, the family claims that TUI told the family to "take them to court" if they wanted their money back, MyLondon reports.
While TUI are now processing a refund, which could take seven days to go through, the family say this isn't good enough and they can't afford to go on holiday again after extra costs such as taxis and airport travel.
They had booked a package holiday through TUI for a 60th birthday and had been looking forward to seven nights in Bodrum, Turkey, from May 23, but those plans were soon ruined.
After arriving at Luton, the family claims that a one-and-a-half hour delay was showing on the notice boards for their easyJet flight.
This then changed to boarding and they headed to the gate.
Their suitcases were even loaded onto the plane, but there was soon an announcement to say they didn’t have enough cabin crew to take all passengers to Turkey.
Leah Curtis, one of the 11, explained what happened after they were told they couldn't board the flight, dashing their hopes of a holiday abroad.
The mum said: "We were then taken down some stairs, in a huge bundle, where a member of easyJet ground staff was handing out a piece of paper and telling us to check the app to change our flights.
"The app didn’t work, we asked what can she do and she said there is nothing she can do and we should get our bags and join a queue at check in.
"We queued for one-and-a-half hours to be told there are no alternative flights this week.
"We then asked again what shall we do? Her response was I’ve told you everything I know.
"I cannot help you. I asked for someone who can and she told us there was no one.
"My sister is 28 weeks pregnant, high risk and wasn’t offered a chair.
"We had three young children who were upset and agitated as we were stranded at Luton for four hours."
After spending four hours at Luton Airport, the family decided to leave at 9.30pm.
The family says they were told by TUI that they were top of their call list and offered them a full refund the next day, but this didn't happen.
When the family didn't receive a refund, Leah took matters into her own hands.
"I went to TUI Crayford at 9:00am (they couldn’t help) and TUI Bluewater at 10:00am and sat there until 2:30pm and got nowhere," she added.
"They had no alternative holidays to offer us.
"We was left for a hour while the manager did a review meeting with a member of staff, and made out to us she was dealing with our request out the back.
"We then received a call from TUI Swansea at 4:30pm who when we asked what other holiday they had for us and she said 'I’m not a sales person you need to look yourself'.
"She then changed her mind and said we have your holiday on June 6 at £1500 extra (we would have to pay) in which we explained this is not our problem.
"We told them that we paid to go on certain dates and you are not offering us a holiday within our dates, we don’t have the funds to pay more.
"She explained that there is nothing further she can do.
"She said we can cancel and they will refund us but that isn’t what we want to do.
"They need to take accountability for what has happened and all the extra costs this has given us (loss of earnings/taxis/car parking/Covid tests etc etc)."
The family now say that TUI cost them much more money and time than a refund covers.
They say they've paid for a holiday which they didn't receive and want compensation from the company, who have now said they will receive a refund - but the family say it's "too little too late".
"We paid for a holiday and we didn’t receive what we paid for," Leah went on.
"We are at home now when we should be in Bodrum."
A spokesperson from TUI said: "We’re very sorry to hear about the Curtis family’s experience and understand how upsetting this will have been.
"Their holiday was affected by an on-the-day flight cancellation by another airline, which unfortunately is outside of our control.
"Our team did their best to find an alternative TUI flight for the customers, however there were none available.
"We can confirm that we have been in contact with the customers and a full refund has been processed."
A spokesperson from easyJet said: "Unfortunately we were unable to operate the EZY2233 from Luton to Bodrum on May 23 due to air traffic control restrictions earlier in the day leading to the crew reaching their maximum operating hours.
"We are very sorry for this late cancellation.
"We always aim to minimise the impact on our customers, providing them with the options to transfer to an alternative flight free of charge, or receive a refund or a voucher.
"Our customer team are in touch with the family to talk through their options.”
