A father and daughter have vowed never to fly with Tui again after they were “abandoned” when their plane was diverted to Cardiff.
Jason Hall, 54, was returning home from holiday with his 13-year-old daughter, expecting to land at Birmingham Airport at 5.30pm.
However, their flight was diverted to Cardiff Airport due to a small aircraft crash-landing on the runway at Birmingham, arriving at 6.10pm.
Mr Hall said that he could not “complain about the holiday”, but was left frustrated after landing in Cardiff.
Passengers on the flight were assured that return transport would be organised for them.
According to Mr Hall, this did not happen and criticised the company’s “shocking” service.
“I can’t complain about the holiday, it was lovely. Coming back was where the trouble started.
“We were promised that we’d be provided with coach travel back to Birmingham, I didn’t mind, these things happen sometimes,” he told StokeOnTrentLive.
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The pair have vowed never to fly with Tui again
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PAMr Hall continued: “We spent an hour-and-a-half collecting our bags because they weren’t expecting two massive 300-passenger Tui planes in.
“But once we’d got our things, we couldn’t see a single member of Tui staff in the whole airport.
“We left for the car park, and there were around 450 people stood waiting for these coaches.”
Mr Hall explained that a member of staff finally arrived from Cardiff Airport, but it was not a member of Tui staff.
He said: “If you think that a coach can hold roughly 50 people, that was nowhere near enough for the 600 of us who had landed.
“There were young families, children, kids in wheelchairs, all sorts of people left with no way of getting home. We stood in the car park for around an hour waiting for some sort of direction.
“Then everybody’s phone went off at the same time. It was an email from Tui informing us that they could not get us home and that we’d need to make our own arrangements.”
Stranded passengers at the airport were informed that the airline was “experiencing difficulties securing transport” and were encouraged to arrange their own journey home.
The pair were due to land at Birmingham Airport, but instead touched down in Cardiff
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Mr Hall explained the chaos, saying: “We were all just abandoned by Tui . There were students and people who didn’t have the money to pay for this up front.
“Some people were getting local taxis that were costing £350. Others were getting Ubers, which were costing £450. Within half an hour, you couldn’t even book one. They’d all gone.
“I made a decision to get a nearby hotel room for me and my daughter, as I didn’t want to make her sleep in the airport. We got a little room down the road for £85. We couldn’t physically get home. There were no taxis, and you couldn’t get a train until the next day.”
The father and daughter had to catch four trains home, with Mr Hall receiving a parking fine for overstaying at the airport.
Tui has since reimbursed Mr Hall in full.
GB News has approached Tui for comment.