Inbound flight at Bristol Airport canceled and passengers left ‘abandoned’

A Bristol traveler due to return from Rhodes to Bristol Airport with TUI on Friday evening (July 19) missed his flight and had to spend the night on the airport floor following a massive IT failure which disrupted flights in the UK yesterday.

The flight was due to leave Rhodes at 23:59 and arrive in Bristol at 2:15 today. However, as of 8.30 a.m., passengers had no idea of ​​the departure time.

With around 180 passengers stranded and without timely updates from TUI representatives, feelings of “frustration”, “abandonment” and “anger” grew among the group, who were “desperate” to get home. Although they received food vouchers from airline staff, they were only redeemed at an airport shop, which reportedly ran out of food within 20 minutes.

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Speaking to BristolLive, local resident Andrew Rankine expressed his distress: “We are stressed. We’ve been here since 8pm last night and there are young children, elderly people, people sleeping on the floor.”

“TUI has not yet provided us with any information. The representatives that are here here have no idea what is going on. Tried calling the helpline but it rings,” reports Bristol Live.

“They told us at about 2.30am that we would have to find our own accommodation because they didn’t want to host us. We have a lot of people here – some people are on medication. It’s just not good at all.”

“We slept near the departure area. We took up the length of the building, there are so many of us. Some are on the floor, the children are in chairs. We slept wherever we could last night and this morning.”

“There are a lot of people with cars in the car park so this is going to cost them extra. It’s just not good at all. The TUI reps said they have no idea what’s going on.”

“This morning I got a voucher for food. But when we went to the kiosk, you could only spend it in one of the stores. And all the food was gone in 20-25 minutes.”

“But the main thing is accommodation. We don’t know when we will leave here and so far we are still here at the airport.”

Andrew explained that the flight was scheduled to depart around 12:00pm and that at approximately 12:45pm, the staff informed the waiting passengers that the flight had been cancelled. He continued: “But they insisted we come to the airport, despite the fact that we knew it was happening on Friday morning and we knew we weren’t leaving here.”

“But they insisted we go to the airport and book as normal. They didn’t give us a reason. They just said we had to be on the bus and at the airport at the normal time. So we were here around 4/5 hours.”

Andrew went on to explain that many passengers missed connecting flights and had work commitments to return to. TUI had advised them to keep any food or accommodation vouchers they had to purchase themselves, with the promise of reimbursement.

“I checked the dashboard this morning and other flights seem to be flying normally. Jet2 flew normally last night. TUI flights to Gatwick and Manchester were canceled early but they all got hotels!” Andrew told BristolLive. .

By 9.30am, TUI informed passengers they would be moved to a hotel to “wash and eat”. Although relieved to hear that they would not have to pay the bill and would receive a “day pass”, passengers were left in the dark about the return flight schedule.

At 9.40am, Andrew updated BristolLive to say TUI had yet to provide a timetable for the return flight to Bristol, adding: “It could be another night at the airport.”

A TUI spokesperson apologized for the inconvenience, saying: “Due to yesterday’s global IT issue at airports and airlines around the world, TUI’s overall level of service has been severely affected and we would like to apologise. to all those affected. While the initial IT issue was beyond our control, a critical system needed to run our airline’s operations remained unstable late last night.”

“So we have taken the difficult decision to cancel a number of outbound flights. We are very sorry for all those customers affected as we understand how disappointing this would have been and recognize that many customers were already at the airport awaiting their departure. We want to reassure customers returning home from holiday that there will be inbound flights and we will update them directly when we have more information.”

“We also ask that all TUI customers due to travel this weekend check the TUI website regularly for updates. We will also contact customers directly via text and email if there are any changes to their flights.”

“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this has caused our customers and our teams are working extremely hard to get everyone home from their holidays as soon as possible.”

Around 32 outbound flights were canceled from 10 UK airports on July 19, according to TUI. Customers who were due to travel on a canceled flight will be able to change their holiday without administration fees to any other TUI package on sale, with a rebooking incentive of up to 10% if the new holiday is more expensive. This 10% incentive is based on the original cost of the vacation. Customers will also receive a TUI holiday voucher of £200 per adult and £100 for each child on a new future holiday. These vouchers will be sent within 28 days.

Information from TUI shows that inbound flights have not been canceled and customers will be informed when they return to the UK. All overseas customers will be looked after by the airline’s team at the resorts.