Mum Rio, 41, her husband, and their twin daughters, 11, were forced to sleep on the floor at Larnaca airport in Cyprus after a string of delays stopped them catching their TUI flight home
A holidaymaker and her family claim they were ‘abandoned’ at a Cyprus airport for nearly 24 hours along with dozens of other TUI passengers.
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. But upon arriving at Larnaca Airport around 9pm, they were informed that the flight was delayed and received an 11 Euro food voucher.
They finally boarded the plane around 3am local time on Saturday morning. They claim they were left sitting on the tarmac for over two hours due to a hydraulics failure on a baggage loader, which left it stuck behind the aircraft.
The family, from Shrewsbury, then received more bad news around 5am when they were told the crew had exceeded their legal flying limit and needed to rest for approximately 12 hours, reports the Manchester Evening News.
“One of the pilots came on the address system and said there would be coaches and hotels,” Rio recalled. However, they claim they have been stuck in the airport ever since, waiting for updates.
Rio revealed her children were forced to sleep on the airport’s ‘freezing’ marble floor, using paper bags as makeshift blankets and cushions.
She said that after hours without any communication, a staff member told the hundreds of stranded passengers at around 9am that 90 hotel rooms had been arranged an hour away.
These were reportedly allocated based on priority, and Rio admitted she ‘didn’t even try’. She continued: “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.”
Travellers have now been informed the flight is scheduled to depart 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.”
A second traveller revealed some passengers are staying in hotels arranged by TUI, whilst others have sorted their own accommodation, and some remain stuck at the airport.
She explained she departed 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 branded the situation a ‘complete shambles’, declaring: “There was clearly no plan for this.”
TUI has been approached for comment.