A Welsh nurse has vowed never to fly with travel agency TUI again after a nightmare journey from Bristol to her wedding in Greece.
Gwenllian Lewis-Ashton and Jonathan Ashton, from Ammanford, experienced a "big bang" as lightning struck their plane on take-off — and they claimed the pilot flew for more than an hour before finally turning around above Luxembourg and heading back to Bristol. The couple and their wedding party then experienced more than 30 hours of "appalling" communication and delays, they said.
Community nurse Gwenllian and retail manager Jonathan's wedding had to be postponed in 2021 because of the Covid pandemic. They rescheduled to June 5 this year and arranged to travel with 14 family members and friends to their dream wedding on the island of Santorini, through a TUI package costing more than £3,000.
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Gwenllian, 27, said recent reports of huge queues at Bristol Airport led them to arrive early for their 6am flight on May 31. "We stayed up all night and left our home at midnight to ensure we got to Bristol on time," she said. "Despite being early we still queued a few hours to check in but managed to skip through security after purchasing fast-track.
"With a late call to the gate, all 16 of our wedding party, including my 85-year-old grandmother and two-year-old niece, managed to get on the plane. An announcement was made to say the plane had missed its slot and had a 12-minute delay to wait for the next. At this point we were just happy to be on that plane hassle-free.
"During take-off the plane was struck by lightning, where all passengers heard a big bang and some claimed to have seen the lightning. Jonathan thought the engine had blown off. It happened just as we took off and the plane was in the air. The captain spoke to us and confirmed we were struck by lightning but reassured us that the aircrafts were built to withstand things like that.
"We continued to fly for over an hour. We were over Luxembourg when the captain made another announcement, declaring he had to return the aircraft to Bristol for engineers to inspect following the earlier incident. It was definitely a big frustration that we'd carried on for so long."
On their return the wedding party went through passport control, claimed their baggage and received £10 vouchers from TUI for food in the airport. Gwenllian said they had to wait two hours for a bus to the Bristol Hotel in the city centre — around half an hour from the airport — where the travel agency put them up for the night.
She added: "The lack of communication only made the situation more stressful due to the unknown of when or if the flight would be rescheduled at all. We rang the TUI support line several times and they didn't know what was happening. It wasn't until 2.40am the following day that we received an email stating the flight was rescheduled for 1pm."
By that point the couple had already spent £120 on the last three seats of another flight because they feared they would miss the ceremony. Gwenllian, Jonathan and his son were ready to fly on the evening of June 1 if their original flight was not rescheduled.
"At that point we thought it would just be us three going to Santorini," said Gwenllian. "That was quite upsetting and stressful. We were all a bit tearful. The only reason we were able to get any sleep that night was because we knew we'd booked the back-up flight. We would have had to go by ourselves because we'd already postponed everything and we wouldn't be able to again at such short notice. We saw online that the original aircraft had flown to Tenerife the same day so we didn't understand why we couldn’t have gone that afternoon.
"Our rescheduled flight was delayed an hour. While waiting to take off we were informed that there was no hot food available. We were delayed a total of 34 hours, resulting in two days lost of our holiday, but also our wedding planning, where we were required to meet vendors and view the venues for the special day. It had to be a bit rushed.
"We were all exhausted. My grandmother Joan is still recovering. But we were very relieved to get there and the wedding day was lovely.
"Ahead of the return flight we were delayed two hours in a hot and small airport, to be informed that there was minimal snacks and drinks available and no duty-free shop. Once we arrived back in Bristol we were of course greeted with a two-hour wait for baggage. This was the last thing we all needed at the end of a cut-short holiday."
The newlyweds made a claim for compensation from TUI — which states on its website that passengers may be entitled for compensation for delays of more than three hours — but were rejected. "They said something about natural disasters when we asked why," said Jonathan, 37.
Gwenllian added: "We will never fly with TUI again after their poor communication and dreadful customer service and urge all future customers to think again who they chose to fly with. We were going to go for a little honeymoon this weekend but all the flights were TUI so we thought, 'Don't bother.'"
A TUI spokeswoman said: “We’re incredibly sorry to the wedding party on flight TOM6212 from Bristol to Santorini who experienced some disruption to their flight due to a lightning strike. The safety of our passengers and crew was not compromised and always remains our highest priority. The aircraft was not damaged in any way and was completely safe to land.
"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 and cancellations are incredibly disappointing, and we would like to reassure them that did everything we can to get them to enjoy the celebrations as planned. We’d like to apologise again for the inconvenience caused and we thank customers for their understanding.”
