Man critical of travel firm after 52-hour delay

Police officer Ben Kirk and his family were originally due to fly home on Saturday evening

A man whose flight from Mexico was delayed by 52 hours said his family was treated "like absolute rubbish" by travel firm Tui.

Ben Kirk, from Lichfield, Staffordshire, said Tui put them up in rowdy and unclean accommodation during the delay, while its representatives refused to provide food vouchers for his eight-month-old son.

“How they’ve handled it has just been disgusting,” said Mr Kirk, who returned to the UK with his family on Tuesday morning.

Tui apologised to all customers affected by the delay in a statement on Monday, and it has been approached for a response to Mr Kirk’s comments.

Ben Kirk claims Tui's representatives said his eight-month-old son could not have the food vouchers for stranded passengers

Mr Kirk, a 25-year-old police officer, and his partner had booked a one-week Tui package trip to Mexico - their first holiday with their son Bradley.

They were due to fly back from Cancun to Manchester on Saturday evening but the flight was cancelled due to a technical issue with their plane. A rescheduled flight on Sunday also did not go ahead.

Tui representatives provided emergency accommodation and food vouchers for the stranded passengers, but Mr Kirk said they refused to provide vouchers for his baby on the grounds that he was not a paying passenger with his own seat on the plane.

The new parents were instead largely left to fend for themselves, he added, and they could not find shops selling formula milk or baby food in the airport or near their hotel.

Mr Kirk told the BBC: “No-one approached us and said: ‘We’re aware that you’ve got a baby, is there anything we can do to help you?’”

During the delay, the couple eked out the extra pouches of baby food they had packed as a precaution, and someone boarding a different flight gave them some spare formula powder. Their baby is still also partly breastfed.

'Like a bad night out'

On Saturday night, Mr Kirk said Tui put up stranded passengers in accommodation that he likened to a “backpackers' hostel”, where students were drinking and partying during America’s annual spring break.

He described the atmosphere there as “like a bad night out”, adding that there were cockroaches and stained sheets in some rooms.

He said the group were returned to their original hotels on Sunday, after their second flight was cancelled, because they refused go back to the other accommodation.

On Monday, Tui said in a statement it “would like to apologise to customers who were due to depart from Cancun to Manchester on flight TOM155 on 9th March.”

The company added that “all customers will receive EU261 compensation and a £200 holiday voucher as a goodwill gesture.”

Mr Kirk said the voucher was “pointless” given that his family had spent more than £3,000 on their trip and had been put off using the company again.