AN eight-year-old girl was left in tears after 32 HOUR delay for her family's £8,000 TUI holiday.
Martha and her family had been planning on traveling to Heraklion, Crete, before their flight was cancelled due to "shambolic" airport chaos and ground staff shortages.
The Tynan family is one of many left disappointed as they were left waiting on the runway for four hours before the pilot told them their flight was cancelled.
Kate, 44, Ben, 45, Noah, 10 and Martha, 8, were told their flight was rescheduled for the following day but upon arrival, TUI staff were nowhere to be found and had 'no idea' about this plan.
Kate said: "TUI are disgusting! Total Utter Incompetence should be their tagline! They most certainly don't put 'you' in the middle.
"They are driven by greed and do not care one bit about the people who have paid them thousands of pounds to go away this half term."
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After two anxiety-ridden days, the family boarded the plane but sat in fear waiting to be told it had been cancelled again.
After the co-pilot helped load luggage into the hold, due to staff shortages, the family were finally on their way, two hours after the scheduled departure time.
Kate said: "When the plane eventually took off, everyone cheered. I cried – I was so emotional.
"I'd not slept the night before worrying if I was going to have to tell my children they couldn't go on holiday anymore."
The mum-of-two said by the time they arrived at their hotel her children were hungry and exhausted, while she and her husband were emotionally drained.
She explained the holiday, which was now shorter than planned, was the most expensive holiday they'd been on and had taken years to save up for.
'ROBBED'
The family felt 'robbed' and expressed it will take a while to feel okay about the 32-hour delay.
In a statement, TUI said: "Whilst every delay and cancellation is regrettable, the vast majority of our flights are operating as planned, with more than 26,000 customers taking off yesterday on holiday.
“We’d like to apologise again for the inconvenience caused and we thank customers for their understanding.”
Many are outraged as flights are being canceled due to airport chaos, it has reduced passengers to climbing on baggage carousels and faking disabilities to skip queues.
Other families such as that of Michael Tierney have also experienced a holiday from hell whilst trying to travel home to Manchester.
The family, including a nine-month-old baby, was left stranded in Turkey and were forced to sleep on the airport floor for three days, they said easyJet showed "no compassion at all."
Brits have been reduced to clambering into baggage carousels to retrieve lost luggage amidst three-hour-long waits at baggage reclaim.
A passenger at the scene said: "The bags were there, but there was no one to put them onto the carousel, I don't think that anyone got their bags."
A spokesperson for the ground handling company, Swissport said: "We know that people are really excited to go on holiday again after long periods without flying during the pandemic.
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We’re really sorry about the experience these passengers had on this flight and we’re looking into the specific circumstances to understand what went wrong."
They also explained how the lifting of flight restrictions following the COVID19 pandemic has created an unprecedented demand for flights and as a result resource shortages in the industry.
Most read in News Travel
Live travel news as EasyJet & TUI cancel hundreds of flights in getaway chaos
Huge change to new Ryanair planes which many are hailing as a gamechanger
I'm a flight attendant and we swear by one suitcase that NEVER breaks
I'm a flight attendant and there are five big mistakes passengers make
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