‘A nightmare from start to finish’: the victims of the UK’s airport chaos

theguardian.com:

Passengers caught up in the half-term travel chaos who were due to depart from UK airports with a range of airlines have been sharing their stories of cancelled honeymoons, missed sporting events and hastily rearranged plans.

Kelly Price should have finally been celebrating her honeymoon in Turkey this week with her husband Wayne, their three children, her mother and in-laws, after the trip was cancelled twice during the pandemic.

However, the family from Builth Wells in mid-Wales only made it as far as Birmingham airport, where they spent all of Monday afternoon trying to keep Penny, two, Stanley, three, and Austin, nine, entertained, while their Tui flight to Antalya was delayed for hours.

At around 7.30pm, they were told to expect to fly the following morning instead and were bussed to nearby hotels, where they received texts from Tui telling them their whole holiday had been cancelled.

“It’s the lack of communication. If they’d cancelled it as we arrived or whatnot … but it felt a little bit like they waited until we got to the hotel.”

Price, 31, had been looking forward to the 12-night break for the family of eight, which cost £9,500, for a long time. “Yesterday I was in bits, as Austin was asking: ‘Are we going on holiday today?’” she said. “It was making me feel more emotional.”

Linda Jones, 50, and her husband Kevin, 53, experienced similar disappointment with Tui. She had booked their trip to Fethiye in Turkey three years ago, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.

The couple, from Llandudno in north Wales, were due to fly with Tui from Manchester airport on Monday, but were notified by text that their flight was delayed until the next morning.

They were originally told a new flight would be chartered from Bristol