Delays cause chaos for travellers returning to East Midlands Airport

Holidaymakers say they are struggling to get home after the ‘chaos’ caused by Friday’s global IT outage.

John Gillespie from Ashby, Leicestershire, feared he would miss a wedding.

He had to spend more than £1,500 on extra accommodation, taxis and flights to get back to the UK.

He said other holidaymakers had to sleep on the floor at the airport in Crete, Greece, while they waited for their return flights.

Many airlines were thrown into chaos on Friday after a problem with an update to the antivirus software that is supposed to protect Microsoft Windows devices.

Tui said it had to cancel 32 flights at 10 UK airports, including East Midlands Airport (EMA) in Castle Donington, Leicestershire.

One of the affected flights was due to be taken by Mr Gillespie and his family after a family holiday in Crete.

Speaking from the Greek island, he told the BBC: “There has been zero communication. They just kept us in the dark.

“Luckily we had accommodation, but people were sleeping on the floor of the airport and had no money to book another hotel. It’s terrible.”

He was nervous about going home because he was going to be best man at a wedding on Tuesday.

He said his family had managed to get the last seats on a Jet2 flight to Stansted Airport on Saturday night.

The delays ended up costing us £400 for an extra night in a hotel, £65 for taxis in Greece, £800 for flights and £260 for a taxi back from Stansted.

“Everyone has had very little sleep, but I’m going to make it to the wedding.

“Tui has still not given us or other passengers an update and has yet to confirm our original flight home.”

Another family, Claire and Simon from East Leake, Nottinghamshire, were due to fly back on the same Tui flight with their four-year-old son Joshua.

Claire said: “We arrived at the airport and didn’t know what was happening. It was just complete chaos.

“The ground crew brought bottles of water, but they said they had not been given permission for a better welfare package.”

Like Mr Gillespie, the couple managed to secure hotel accommodation and a seat on the Jet2 flight to Stansted.

They estimate the delays and cancellations cost them more than £750.

Tui said in a statement that affected passengers would be offered alternative flights or refunds, plus discounts on future holidays.

A spokesperson added: “Tui’s overall service levels have been severely impacted and we would like to apologise to anyone affected by this.

“While the original IT issue was beyond our control, a critical system needed to keep our airline running remained unstable.

“We realize that many customers were already at the airport waiting for their departure.”

EMA said extra staff had been deployed to deal with the delays and urged passengers flying this week to contact their airline in advance.

IT experts warn that the consequences of the outage will be felt in the coming days.