Angry passengers in the midst of a 12-hour nightmare with travel firm TUI tried to rip open doors in baggage reclaim at Birmingham Airport after tempers frayed.
The passengers had seen their flight home from Turkey delayed by four hours and then diverted 150 miles from Norwich to the Midlands. After landing at 3am on Saturday, July 9, a four-hour wait for luggage to be unloaded and then spend time hanging around for transport back to Norwich saw reports of police involvement to calm frayed tempers.
According to BirminghamLive, some passengers were so frustrated that they booked taxis for the mammoth 160 mile trip back to their original destination. Footage also shows angry passengers surround an airline rep in the baggage hall.
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TUI has admitted it let down passengers and offered them a discount on a future holiday. But one couple told BirminghamLive they'd never travel with the firm again. Catherine Arnold, 40, spoke of how many passengers resorted to sleeping on the floor of the airport, with others attempting to force open a door and fetch their own luggage as they were so sick of waiting.
She said police arrived to "diffuse the situation" outside the airport terminal, and spoke of how tensions flared and families waited for "up to an hour" for taxis to take them back to Norwich.
"We were already delayed by over four hours by the time we got on the flight," said Catherine, who was travelling with her partner Tom, 41. "The stewardess came on and said we couldn't fly back to Norwich anymore because it was too late at night, so we'd be diverting to Birmingham. There were a lot of moans and groans.
"When we got to Birmingham to go and fetch our suitcases, the bags didn't come out. It was horrendous because there were no staff in the room. We were stuck in there for four hours in total with pretty much no communication."
The travellers were just boarding flight TOM713 from Dalaman after a four-hour delay when they were told the plane would be taking them to Birmingham instead. But after landing, the delays kept coming - and in a text message TUI apologised to customers, blaming a ramp failure for the delay.
Catherine added: "There was no TUI rep there until around 7am and we landed at 3.20am. It was bad enough for us - everyone was tired and fed up - but there were people there with young children. I saw one woman begging for her pushchair for her baby, saying: 'I don't care about my bags, please can I just have my pushchair, I can't hold her anymore'. She had to lie her little one down to sleep on the floor in the end."
Catherine shot video footage showing a crowd of frustrated passengers questioning a TUI worker over the hold-up and demanding answers as to who was responsible. She said the situation was made worse by the fact the only way to buy food or drink in the baggage hall was from a vending machine which didn't accept anything other than coins or small notes.
A guy from TUI turned up at the 11th hour and even then we weren't told much," said Catherine. "People weren't happy. When we finally got out, we were told there would be coaches waiting for us, but when we got outside there were only about six taxis there. The majority of us were left standing on the kerb for up to an hour."
She said people then began to get even more fed up, and "it got quite heated". "The police came over and were trying to diffuse the situation. There was one couple I really felt for. They were probably in their 60s and the gentleman had late-stage cancer. They ended up paying for their own taxi home because he clearly wasn't well and they'd had enough of waiting.
"We should have been home and in bed by midnight but we only walked through the door at midday. Quite laughably, TUI sent us an email to say sorry and to offer us a £150 voucher off our next TUI holiday, which I thought was a kick in the teeth. We'll never be flying with TUI again after this."
TUI said passengers on the TOM713 were entitled to claim 261€ compensation and would receive an extra gesture of goodwill. The firm said it would be investigating the precise reason for the delays.
A spokesperson said: "We’re really sorry to customers travelling on TOM713 from Dalaman to Norwich Airport, which was initially delayed due to an earlier flight delay because of bad weather. We then had to divert the aircraft to Birmingham Airport due to the curfew at Norwich Airport.
"Delays with baggage reclaim and transfers at Birmingham meant customers were unfortunately waiting at the airport much longer than they should have. We're investigating how this happened to prevent it from happening again.
"We've arranged transport for all customers who are now on their way back to Norwich and we've been in contact with them to apologise, explain how to claim compensation and provide a gesture of goodwill. We realise this isn't the level of service our customers usually receive and for that, we are sorry."
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