TUI informed travellers who were sitting in a plane on the runway their flight was cancelled sparking angry scenes.
Holidaymakers were left ‘in tears’ as passengers were left stuck on the tarmac before being escorted off the plane at Cardiff Airport as travel agency TUI suddenly cancelled an entire holiday package to Tenerife.
Passengers had been waiting for their flight to Tenerife, which was already delayed by an hour, according to WalesOnline. They were then forced to wait another hour after boarding the plane because of a malfunctioning part.
As the part was being fixed, passengers received text messages and emails from the German holiday giant informing them that their entire holiday was cancelled.
TUI has said the cancellation was down to “operational and supply chain issues” in combination with the influx of people going on holiday at this time of year.
It has assured that all impacted customers are entitled to compensation and will receive an “extra gesture of goodwill” from the company, report Mirror Online.
However, TUI’s goodwill gesture has not gone down well with passengers who are “absolutely devastated”.
Huw Davies, from Porthcawl, boarded the flight 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 his children and grandchildren were in tears.
He said: “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.
“I think it’s a load of b****** that they’ve said the engine went down, because that plane had flown in from Alicante.
“If this part was obviously malfunctioning on the way into the airport, why the hell did they load us? Why did they go through the motions? They knew that that plane wasn’t going to take off.”
He learnt of the flight’s cancellation through other passengers on the plane who had received emails, but he said he has yet to receive one.
He said: “I’ve phoned TUI’s headquarters and a message comes straight down the line that they’re dealing with this and we’d be contacted.
“So they knew that they were going to cancel this flight and several round the country.”
He recalled the passengers were told disembark, before being taken into the airport terminal and told somebody from TUI would turn up to face them.
“But it wasn’t. It was a woman from [another] travel agency,” said Huw, adding that the representative told them the cancellation was due to the malfunctioning part.
He recalled police were present in the terminal in case passengers “kicked off”. He said: “[TUI’s policy] is that they’re supposed to supply another flight. We had it in black and white and showing them.”
Asked how important the holiday was to his family, he said his son had booked the trip as a surprise for his daughter.
“It was a special holiday and to make it worse, we asked my daughter where she wanted to go, because she’s recently lost her mother.
“She wanted to go back to where we took my wife on holiday for the first time.”
He estimates the family has paid up to £9,000 to TUI, not including all the fees for other travel related costs.
“We’re all our of pocket,” he said. “We’ve put our good faith into these people who should have transported us to our destination by other means and they haven’t had the decency to do this.”
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