Traumatised flyers have described an 'abysmal' experience with TUI at Manchester Airport which involved 30 hour delays and some begging to go home. One plane that did manage to take off had to make an emergency landing, leaving children 'petrified'.
Hundreds of passengers arrived at the airport in the early hours of Friday morning (June 24) excited for an all-inclusive TUI holiday to Dalaman in Turkey, with the flight set to leave at 6.10am. Repeated delays meant the flight did not take off until 9pm, but passengers soon knew something was not right.
Fumes or smoke could be smelt onboard with passengers alerted an hour into the flight that there was a fault with the plane and they would need to turn back to Manchester for a potential 'emergency landing'. This left many onboard 'petrified' and the plane was greeted by fire engines after landing.
However, it would be another hour before people were let off the plane and after this there was another wait for coaches to take passengers to hotels across Manchester. Some were notified to be ready for a coach to pick them up around 5am for their next flight, but this never arrived, with people having to fork out for taxis back to the airport. This 9am flight was once again delayed until the afternoon.
Many on board who had to face this ordeal have contacted the Manchester Evening News to slam TUI, who they claim left passengers in the dark throughout the 30 plus hours. Patience was beginning to 'wear thin', according to one, while families with young kids were struggling to cope.
Maria Cooper, who is travelling with her partner, described the situation as a 'nightmare'. "There's been no communication or anything at all," she said.
"We are just relying on the boards and text messages from TUI for everything. Everyone here has had only a few hours sleeps, babies and young kids here are really struggling.
"You honestly couldn't write it. We were an hour into the flight after all the delays and had to come back, the pilot and onboard staff were amazing but it was really scary still.
"People are trying to keep in high spirits and everyone is trying to help each other, especially the families with lots of big bags and young kids, but it has stressed everyone out so much. Kids have been crying a lot they're so upset.
"Everyone has lost confidence in the whole thing. The airport staff have been great in trying to help us but no one from TUI has been there at any point to tell us what's happening next.
"It's genuinely abysmal, it's not acceptable to be treating people like this for such a big company. It's shameful.
"This is some people's first holiday since the pandemic, and some kids first ever holiday, people are completely traumatised, it's like a film. We're all zombies at this point."
Molly Charfe's grandad paid more than £15,000 for their extended family of 13 to go on holiday to Dalaman. Unfortunately, due to recent health issues the delays have been too much for him and he has gone home to rest. Molly's brother had no issues flying to the resort from Gatwick, and the family are praying they will be able to join him soon.
"We paid £11 each to be all together on the flight that did manage to take off but some of the children coming with us were made to sit on their own amongst the chaos," she said. "We were glad to have finally set off but we could all smell fumes straight away. It felt like something had fallen off the plane when we were landing, it was wobbling loads.
"There was no one to tell us where to go when we were finally let off the plane and eventually got to the coach/taxi rank at 11pm. But we were left waiting until 3am before a coach left to take us to a hotel.
"We only slept for an hour because we were told we'd be picked up at 5.30am but a coach never arrived and we had to pay £40 per taxi to get us back to the airport. The hotel tried to charge us for the room at first too, they had no idea what was happening.
"There were no TUI staff to meet us at the airport again and other airport staff didn't know what was going on with us. When the morning flight was delayed our grandad had to go home as he's vulnerable and unwell at the moment, he paid £15,000 for a big family trip together but it's been ruined for him now, it's so sad.
"We've all been crying. You can't complain about what happened to the plane but the communication has been awful. They're not looking out for our welfare at all, it feels like they're delaying more and more so people will just leave.
"It's been so traumatic, especially having been on a plane which had to emergency land."
Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, described the situation as "like Benny Hill". "There was an awful smell of smoke before they announced the emergency landing, we were all preparing for the worst," she said. "It really wasn't pleasant.
"I'm supposed to be on day two of a seven day holiday right now. There's people begging to go home, kids are crying, babies have been up more than 24-hours, it's absolutely awful.
"I have absolutely no faith in TUI now, never going to book with them again. The communication has been dreadful. They've given us food vouchers but I'm supposed to be at an all inclusive resort right now. I've spent 12 months saving up all of my money for this. Spent two and a half years looking forward to it for this."
A TUI spokesperson said: "We’d like to apologise to customers travelling on TOM822 from Manchester Airport to Dalaman which was unfortunately delayed due to a technical issue. 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.
"We understand that last minute delays are incredibly disappointing and would like to reassure customers that we do everything we can to get them away on their holidays as planned. We’d like to apologise again for the inconvenience passengers travelling to Dalaman experienced and we thank them for their understanding.”
Manchester Airport has been approached for a comment.
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