A Leeds woman and her family have revealed their horrendous experience after trying to go on holiday, two years after it was booked. Sarah Kandziorca, from Chapeltown, booked her holiday through TUI two years ago at a cost of £1,900.
However, when Sarah and her two children arrived at Manchester Airport, they found out their flight was cancelled. The family arrived at the airport after being told everything was going ahead as planned, but 10 minutes later they received an email stating their flight had been cancelled.
Sarah and her children were meant to fly out to Turkey on Monda, May 30, at 6.20am but their flight was rearranged to 8am today (Tuesday, May 31). Sarah claims they had no prior warning about their flight cancellation, with a spokeswoman for TUI claiming the flight was unable to depart due to "unprecedented operational challenges at Manchester Airport".
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Sarah said: “This holiday has been booked for two years now. We got picked up on Sunday and all day we got told by TUI that the flight was going ahead. We got to the airport, stood there for 10 minutes and were told there were no TUI flights going.
“They told us the holiday was just rearranged, not cancelled, there was a big party of us, and no one could get a hold of TUI."
The family were put into a hotel by the holiday company at no charge and with free food. However, drinks were not free and due to Sarah's son's nut allergy, she had to buy her own food. Their next flight was expected to be at 8am today but after hearing nothing from TUI, Sarah claims a fellow traveller told her that the flight had been cancelled, after being told by Swiss Airlines.
"We were basically put in a hotel, expecting to be picked up but rather than tell us our holiday was cancelled, we got nothing," Sarah said.
Sarah was furious with TUI's service so she tried to get in touch to arrange a refund or compensation. However, that failed.
She said: "I tried ringing, tried doing the compensation form, and that crashed which seems convenient, I'm now going to have to go to Hay's Travel and find a last-minute [holiday] somewhere.”
“TUI is absolute garbage, I would never fly with them if they offered me a free fight with the queen.
"They stood and lied in people’s faces."
Sarah even claims when she spoke to one of the airport staff about her flights, she overheard them say: "RIP TUI".
She had people waiting for her in Turkey and even had the hotel on the other side trying to contact TUI to see what happened, but they say they heard nothing.
What TUI says
A spokeswoman for TUI said: "We’d like to apologise to customers travelling on flight TOM714 from Manchester to Dalaman which was unable to depart as planned on Monday 30 May due to unprecedented operational challenges at Manchester Airport.
"Unfortunately, we felt the impact to the customers’ holidays was too great and regretfully made the difficult decision to cancel the flight. We notified affected customers as soon as we became aware of the change and they will receive a full refund within the next 14 days.
Has the chaos at airports put you off going abroad? Let us know in the comments.
"The May half-term holidays are always an incredibly busy period with many customers looking to get away.
While flight delays and cancellations with us are rare, unfortunately various operational and supply chain issues, has meant that a small number of our flights have been impacted. We’d like to reassure our customers that the majority of our flights are expected to operate as planned. Our teams have been working to support affected customers and we’d like to thank customers for their patience and understanding during this time."
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