Tui abandons hundreds of skiers at airport as bad weather cancels flights

‘It was clear that Tui had no contingency plan in place’ – passenger Sam Rapley, who arrived 32 hours late in the UK, at the wrong airport

Going nowhere: the scene at Chambery airport in southeast France on Saturday (Rik Crompton)

After a weekend of mayhem at a French airport, Britain’s biggest travel firm has been accused of failing to have a contingency plan for 1,000 stranded holidaymakers – and ignoring air passengers’ rights rules.

Tui cancelled at least 10 flights from Chambery airport in southeast France on Saturday. As the small terminal became overcrowded, passengers were told to wait outside the airport for five hours in freezing temperatures.

By midnight, some had been handed over to the French Red Cross to stay in an emergency shelter set up in a local conference centre, while others took refuge in a local theatre.

The holiday company has advised its customers to claim compensation from their travel insurers.

Visibility at Chambery airport on Saturday morning was intermittently poor. While British Airways and Flybe operated all their ski charters, albeit with delays, Tui managed to land only one out of 12 flights from the UK.

The company kept most Chambery-bound planes on the ground at UK airports – fully loaded with passengers – until they were eventually cancelled because of uncertainty over weather at the Alpine airport.

Returning Tui holidaymakers, most of them customers of Tui’s ski subsidiary, Crystal, started arriving at Chambery airport at 7am on Saturday morning. Among them was Rik Crompton, who was booked on a flight to Manchester at 9.10am. He said: “Coaches kept arriving with no planes to take anyone away.”

By 3pm, eight hours after they had arrived at Chambery airport, passengers were given food vouchers for a coffee and a pastry each.

Meanwhile at Manchester, passengers were complaining of being held for many hours onboard aircraft while waiting for the weather in France to clear.

One Tui traveller at Manchester, Joe Grattan, tweeted he had been “stuck inside a plane for 10 hours, with two shortbread fingers and a glass of water, next to the runway”.

Back at Chambery, crowding inside the small terminal became overwhelming. Tui passengers were told to wait outside in a car park – for what turned out to be five hours.

Waiting game: French police watch the crowd of Tui holidaymakers who were told to wait in a car park for five hours (Sam Rapley)

Chambery airport, which is 767 feet above sea level, is favoured by skiers for its proximity to the resorts, but is particularly susceptible to fog.

Ski operators to the Alps generally experience adverse weather on “changeover” day at least once in a season, and plan accordingly.

Yet Sam Rapley, who was booked to fly to Stansted but ended up departing 32 hours late to Gatwick, said there appeared to be no resilience: “It was clear that Tui had no contingency plan in place. Staff on the ground and at the Tui call centre had no information.”

European air passengers’ rights rules require airlines to provide hotel rooms if a long delay or cancellation makes it necessary.

One obvious solution was to take the stranded holidaymakers back to their resorts, where there were more than enough empty rooms because of all the cancelled flights from the UK.

Tui has declined to say why it chose not to do so.

Cross purposes: Tui customers in the care of the French Red Cross. Failing to provide accommodation for passengers saved the travel firm tens of thousands of pounds (Jon Else)

Instead, some passengers were taken to a local theatre and invited to spend the night in the seats.

Others were taken to a makeshift Red Cross shelter in the Andre Grosjean cultural centre in Aix-les-Bains. Mr Crompton said: “Beds were allocated to children and the infirm, adults had to sleep on the floor.”

Despite Tui insisting no accommodation was available, some passengers reported that they had found hotel rooms reasonably easily. But Mr Rapley said Tui staff warned travellers who sorted out accommodation that “no costs would be reimbursed.”

Melanie Tan tweeted: “My mother is 71 years old travelling on a ski holiday with her two friends. It’s a disgrace that you won’t pay for a hotel, there are many options in Chambery.

“You shouldn’t be making people sleep on camp beds run by the Red Cross. Totally inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Failing to provide accommodation for passengers saved Tui tens of thousands of pounds.

Aix pains: hundreds of Tui holidaymakers spent Saturday night in a cultural centre in a French spa town (Jon Else)

Many Tui passengers reported that that Sunday’s flight schedule was chaotic, with multiple delays extending the journey still further. They were taken to Lyon and Grenoble airports.

Some passengers who were expecting to fly to Birmingham were put on a plane to Manchester. On arrival, they were handed letters advising them to claim on their travel insurance.

One passenger, Vicky Wickens, tweeted: “Compensation should be forthcoming from you guys surely?”

Other travellers from the UK who had booked with Tui on the basis that they would be in their resorts by Saturday evening did not arrive until Monday morning.

Passengers from Exeter had to take a bus to Gatwick, where they were put on a flight to Lyon, requiring an extra-long transfer to their resorts.

At Gatwick, the flight took off a further two hours, 20 minutes behind schedule, and touched down in Lyon early on Monday morning.

Mr Crompton’s homeward flight, originally scheduled for 9.10am on Saturday morning from Chambery airport, eventually took off 38 hours later from Lyon – after an additional hold-up delayed take-off by over 90 minutes.

Passengers were told that no food or drink was available onboard the aircraft.

Not leaving: the crew of a flight to Gatwick left the aircraft because of problems about paperwork (Sam Rapley)

Travellers to Gatwick – including many who were originally supposed to be going to Stansted – were waiting for their delayed flight at Lyon airport when the crew walked off the plane at one stage, in an apparent dispute about paperwork.

A Tui spokesperson said on Sunday: ”We can confirm that a number of customers have been impacted following adverse and changeable weather conditions in Chambery on Saturday 4 January.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always our highest priority and we are doing all we can to get everyone to their destination as quickly as possible today.

“Customers are being provided with food and drinks and are being supported by our Crystal ski reps. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing and would like to thank our customers for their co-operation and patience.”