Stuck in Manchester Airport - advice on rights with TUI?

njc1325

Hi - my sister and brother in law were due to fly with TUI at 5:55pm yesterday from Manchester, the flight got delayed then cancelled and they were sent to a hotel (albeit they were only told where to go and no transport arranged 3 hours after the cancellation text!), this morning the flight was delayed again, then they were starting to board the replacement plane at around 11:30am and got told to get off as the flight had been cancelled again.   

They then got told they have to wait at the gate until/in case a replacement flight is found, an hour passed and they got told the flight is cancelled and they are to stay over at a hotel again. 

My question from them is, does anyone know what the rules are in these circumstances for them to now cancel the holiday and receive a full refund?  It seems as though TUI are hoping people will just start to give up and leave (then they don't have as much compensation to pay out!) but there must be a certain period of time you have to wait and then can cancel yourself surely, otherwise they could just keep going through this daily until the day they're supposed to be coming home?!!

PS. I should note TUI have been horrendous throughout this with nobody offering any advice or guidance, hence me saying I'll try and find something on here as the website is also no use! 

Thank you in advance   

MATTR5

Hi they can cancel under ATOL rules but word on the ground is TUI are offering big compensation amounts so they really e.g. I've seen "TUI are offering customers a £700 refund for delayed flights plus £200pp voucher to book with them again!!!!" so tell them to keep checking the TUI App and try and speak to check in staff to get updates 

njc1325

Thank you, after 32 hours TUI cancelled their whole holiday so not something to worry about now, I suppose the one positive out of it is the refund and compensation, it's just such a shame and has been handled terribly by TUI! 

Westin

Things must REALLY be bad at TUI  for them to cancel flights.  Schedule carriers and low-cost carriers may more frequently cancel services but in my experience up until this year it was very very rare for a charter airline to completely cancel a flight.  They might run flights with lengthy delays, or sub-charter ad-hoc aircraft from other airlines - rare to cancel completely. It is certainly an eye opener at the moment.

Alan_Bowen

Manchester appears to be the big problem for TUI, Gatwick is the problem for Easyjet. At Manchester TUI's handling agents don't have enough staff to load and unload the aircraft, never mind staff to fly the things. Easyjet is apparently claiming they are cancelling 24 flights a day from Gatwick but by 1230 today Simon Calder had counted 42 already, so it seems to be much worse than they are admitting. 

NoodleDoodleMan

"Manchester appears to be the big problem for TUI"

Seems to be a common denominator.

Our TUI return flight from Palma to Glasgow last week was over 2 hours delayed due to the outward leg being delayed leaving the UK.

The aircrew reported to collect the empty plane at MAN at the arranged time to fly up to GLA to start the day.

No ground handling crew were available at Manchester to move the plane from its parked up location.

k3lvc

And this is exactly the perfect storm that many forecast - with 2 companies that were far from perfect to start with (TUI/MAG)

Furloughing/laying off a high volume of contract workers and loss of a pool of EU workers has reset the game - many have found work elsewhere and realised that there is life outside the airport whereas those who want to return/are new starters are caught in a training/licencing backlog. All this in a predominantly cost-based, contract environment has a real risk of getting worse before better

Those booked on flights in non-peak hours might have a reasonable experience but god help those trying to check-in/pass security/collect bags at times where multiple flights are departing/arriving