Rio, 41, her husband, and their twin daughters, 11, were scheduled to fly back to Manchester on a TUI flight at midnight on Friday after a two-week holiday on the Mediterranean island
A holidaymaker and her family allege they were ‘left stranded’ at a Cyprus airport for nearly 24 hours, along with scores of other TUI passengers.
Rio, 41, her spouse, and their 11-year-old twin daughters were due to fly back to Manchester on a TUI flight at midnight on Friday following a fortnight’s holiday on the Mediterranean isle. However, upon reaching Larnaca Airport around 9pm, they were informed of a flight delay and given an 11 Euro food voucher.
They eventually boarded the aircraft around 3am local time on Saturday morning. They claim they were left stationary on the runway for over two hours due to a hydraulics failure on a baggage loader, which resulted in it being trapped behind the plane.
The Shrewsbury-based family then received further disappointing news around 5am when they were informed that the crew had surpassed their legal flying limit and required approximately 12 hours of rest.
“One of the pilots came on the address system and said there would be coaches and hotels,” Rio recollected. However, they allege they have been marooned in the airport ever since, awaiting updates, reports the Mirror.
Rio disclosed that her children were compelled to sleep on the airport’s ‘freezing’ marble floor, utilising paper bags as makeshift blankets and pillows.
She stated that after several hours without any communication, a staff member informed the hundreds of stranded passengers at around 9am that 90 hotel rooms had been secured an hour away.
These were reportedly distributed according to priority, and Rio confessed she ‘didn’t even try’. She went on: “It kicked off big style. People were shouting ‘you can’t treat us like this, we’re not animals’.
“If we’d have known from the start we could maybe have arranged our own hotel, but we were told that it was already sorted. And once the time passed, we were too scared to leave as we didn’t know when the flight is meant to be or whether they were going to cancel it altogether,” she explained.
“Also it is touching 40 degrees outside, and we don’t have our luggage, so we wouldn’t be prepared for the weather. We haven’t got any swimwear, any sun cream.
“This is a family flight, there are loads of tiny kids. Everyone has had to try and sleep on the floor. The chairs are all metal with arm rests so you can’t lie down. So all the kids, including ours, have just slept on the floor. Lots of people just haven’t slept at all.
“We had got a 15 Euro voucher 6am and then a 20 Euros at 5:15pm. It sounds okay but it’s so expensive here you can barely get anything for that here.”
Passengers have now been told the flight is due to take off at 1.15am (Cypriot time) on Sunday morning (August 24). “I feel really mad,” Rio added.
“I appreciate these things happen. Technical issues etcetera, they happen. But to be abandoned by your tour operator for so many hours like this is just ridiculous. It’s so disappointing and frustrating.”
Another traveller disclosed that some passengers are lodging in hotels organised by TUI, while others have arranged their own accommodation, and a few are still stranded at the airport.
She detailed her decision to leave the airport as ‘sleeping on the floor wasn’t an acceptable option’, stating: “We had been up for 24 hours by the time we left.”
She labelled the situation a ‘complete shambles’, asserting: “There was clearly no plan for this.”
TUI has been contacted for a response.
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