'Absolute chaos' after Tui flights cancelled

Passengers claim they spent hours in the baggage reclaim area without food or water

Passengers flying with Tui at Birmingham Airport said it was "absolute chaos" after they were kept waiting for hours without food or drink when IT systems crashed on Friday.

Katie Potter, from Rugeley, Staffordshire, was due to fly to Turkey on Friday but spent nearly 12 hours at the airport when her flight was cancelled.

She said passengers felt like "prisoners" after they were moved away from their boarding gate to the baggage reclaim area.

A Tui spokesperson apologised and said it had made the "difficult decision" to cancel a number of outbound flights following the global IT outage.

Katie Potter and her family were due to fly to Antalya from Birmingham Airport on Friday

Ms Potter, who was travelling to Antalya with her family, said passengers had "no idea what was going on" in the hours following the IT outage.

Having arrived at the airport at about 11:00 BST before her flight at about 15:30, she said the flight was first delayed by an hour before passengers went to their boarding gate.

Another hour later, the pilot came out and announced their flight was going to be cancelled due to staffing issues, she said.

"All of our baggage was on the plane," she explained. "[The pilot] was 90% sure the flight would be rescheduled for [Saturday] and that everybody would be put up in hotels if they needed to be."

But what followed was a "nightmare in itself," she said.

Ms Potter said she and her family spent almost 12 hours at Birmingham Airport

Passengers were then "dispersed all over the baggage area" in arrivals to make space for a departing Emirates flight, where they spent more than two hours with "no drinks, no food, no access to anything," including toilets.

"It was absolute chaos, never known anything like it," Ms Potter told the BBC. "Children crying. There's no aircon in the terminal, sun was absolutely beaming on it."

Ms Potter, who is a dance teacher and runs a dance academy, said it appeared about four Tui flights had been cancelled but there were no Tui or airport staff around.

Passengers were eventually sent emails from the airline confirming their flights were cancelled but they would be offered compensation vouchers.

Ms Potter, who rebooked her holiday for Sunday with another airline, finally reached home at midnight after collecting her bags.

"[The pilot] said in the 20 years he'd worked, he's never seen anything like this," she added.

Passengers waited for hours at the boarding gate for the flight to Antalya from Birmingham Airport

Another passenger, who did not want to be named, told the BBC they were waiting at the gate for about four hours before the pilot told them that "they didn't have enough staff to send a plane off."

He described the terminal as "like a greenhouse" and "very, very hot," and said passengers were worried about others who were diabetic or had medical conditions.

"It's a stressful situation, the pilot was saying it's a crew thing. They couldn't get enough crew, before they changed their tune and said now it's an IT issue," he said.

Multiple companies including banks, media outlets, train stations and airlines were among those affected on Friday morning when the global IT outage affected computer systems worldwide.

A Birmingham Airport spokesperson said on Friday that the majority of flights were "operating as normal" during the IT outage but some check-ins had experienced delays which were being processed by colleagues.

In a statement, Tui told the BBC its overall service level was "heavily impacted" following the global IT outage and it was "deeply sorry" for the inconvenience it had caused to customers.

"Whilst the original IT issue was outside of our control, an essential system needed to run our airline operation remained unstable late into last night," a spokesperson said.

"We are very sorry to all those customers impacted as we understand how disappointing this would have been and recognise that many customers were already at the airport waiting for their departure," they added.

"We would like to reassure customers due to return home from their holiday that inbound flights will take place and we will update them directly when we have more information."

Passengers travelling this weekend have also been advised to regularly check the Tui website for updates.