An angry mother has vowed she will never holiday with one airline again after what she described as a "catalogue of errors" hampered her holiday. Stacey Young, 37, had splashed out on a £2,000 all-inclusive holiday to Gran Canaria with her family.
Travelling from Newcastle with her partner Steven and two young children, the irked group didn't reach their destination for 16 hours after they were supposed to arrive. Their TUI flight was diverted back home after two hours in the air due to the pilot falling ill, reports ChronicleLive.
Stacey and her family eventually arrived on their holiday but were subject to a severe delay on May 4 after what she describes as a "catalogue of errors" at the hands of the travel agent.
Passengers were told mid-flight, believed to be "somewhere over France", that they were returning to Newcastle due to the pilot's illness. On returning to the airport, they were informed they would not be leaving until the following day.
TUI were said to have offered accommodation in hotels to those who required it. However, Stacey claims the Hilton DoubleTree weren't able to cope with the demand of passengers, leaving them unable to use their £20 food voucher and as a result going to bed hungry.
The airline had sent an email at 12.30am informing them of their new flight time of 7.30am on May 5. Stacey and her family arrived at the airport on time, but she believes it was too short notice for others as they were forced to wait to board the plane.
She told ChronicleLive: "If the pilot was that ill, why did we travel a further two hours back to Newcastle when it was a four-hour flight to Gran Canaria? We could have flown the entire way and landed, had our holiday and everything would have been fine, and if the pilot had needed to go to hospital in Gran Canaria, he could have done that.
"Instead, they turned the plane around, bypassed every single hospital on the way to Newcastle, then proceeded to circle around for another half an hour burning off fuel before landing and letting all the passengers and their luggage off. At this point, nobody knew what was going on, nobody was talking to us - I just don't understand why we endured a four-and-a-half hour flight to be no further forward, and if the pilot was that bad, why didn't we land at the nearest airport so he could get to hospital?"
She claims TUI has refused to pay compensation to Stacey and other passengers who were on the flight. Stacey said they cited European Regulation EC261/2004, which states airlines may have to pay compensation when experiencing a delay of over three hours on arrival, but only if the delay wasn't caused by "extraordinary circumstances".
This response was despite passengers returning to their starting point and not arriving in Gran Canaria until the following day. With the medical grounds of a "passenger or crew member becomes seriously ill or dies on-board at short notice before the flight" the airline have considered this as extraordinary circumstances.
However, Stacey feels they should accept responsibility for the flight being returned. She continued: "It was classed as exceptional circumstances but we were delayed for almost 17 hours and missed a day of our holiday, how is that okay?
"I've always holidayed with TUI but now I'm absolutely fuming with them. If they'd just say yes, we understand that you've missed your holiday, it would have been okay.
"Holidays are expensive, families spend an entire year paying for them, and they're just saying nah, you get nothing. We just wanted to get on with our holiday and enjoy it as much as we could but we felt like it had been cut short, because it had.
"We felt a little bit rushed because we felt pressured to go on an excursion as we arrived, rather than have time to settle in. Although we enjoyed our holiday, of course we did, it just took the shine off it."
ChronicleLive have approached TUI for a comment but at the time of publication they had not provided a response.
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