It was a return nobody had wanted – or had planned for. After a glorious week in sunny Tenerife, we arrived at the airport in plenty of time last Friday to catch our TUI flight home to Dublin. Throughout the day, we’d heard about the chaos resulting from the global IT outage: thousands of flights cancelled, essential services throughout the world seriously impacted.
As we arrived at the airport, a notification on the TUI app: the IT glitch meant that our flight was going to be delayed by a couple of hours, and was now scheduled to leave at 1am. Given the widespread mess affecting airlines all over the world, this wasn’t the worst news.
The glitch meant that check-in services were slower than usual, so the queue moved pretty slowly. But everyone was in good form: we chatted to passengers around us, some going home to Dublin with us, others travelling on TUI flights to destinations in the UK. The general consensus was that it had been a brilliant holiday, the hotels were great, the service was top notch and we’ll all miss the great weather when we’re home. All around us, children ran in and out of the queue while parents made half-hearted efforts to keep them in line.
It was too good to be true.
Cancellation
The announcement was brief and to the point: the Dublin flight had been cancelled, so all passengers had to leave the q ueue and await further instructions. TUI reps were on hand with bottles of water and assurances that as soon as they knew what was happening, we would.
And the good mood held. Most of us understood that there was nothing anyone could do but be patient and try to stay positive. And we weren’t the only flight either: four other UK-bound flights had also been cancelled, so the reps were tasked with taking care of passengers from five different flights.
While groups around us sat and chatted, played games of Uno or watched programmes on their phones, the reps scrambled to provide us information. At around 11pm – the originally scheduled time of departure – one rep came over and reassured us that we would all get a hotel – “minimum four stars” – but that it would just take time, and if we could stay patient that would be great.
Wait a minute: the reps were going to source bedrooms for five flights’ worth of passengers….at midnight? Something just didn’t add up.
Sure enough, it didn’t. At around midnight, another announcement: unfortunately, beds for everyone couldn’t be found so we had a choice: find our own accommodation or stay in the airport. And so began the scramble for rooms. I found a hotel on booking.com that was 14km away, and not too expensive. That was great – we’d at least get a night’s sleep before coming back tomorrow for round two.
As it happened, the hotel was 30km away, and high up in the mountains. A 35-minute taxi ride up winding roads at 12.30 at night wasn’t ideal, but when we eventually got there we had a bed.
A terminal night
For most others on our flight, though, it was a case of having to make do in the terminal. Before we left, I saw parents making little cocoons for the kids to sleep from luggage and chairs borrowed from the various retail outlets. The mood wasn’t as buoyant as before, but still there was a sense that everyone was in this together so people went out of their way to be accommodating.
Parents went out of their way to calm tired, upset children; a number of families had the additional stress of children with ASD, but TUI were able to locate some rooms for them, which was acknowledged by most as the right thing to do.
It’s a testament to the general decency of people that, at a time of real challenge and stress, they were able to recognise that some needed additional help and so didn’t begrudge them getting the few rooms TUI were able to locate.
The next morning, however, the good mood had more than worn off. I was in constant touch with a passenger who’d slept in the terminal, and was told there was an ugly incident between arriving staff and an irate, exhausted mother over the improper use of chairs: a confrontation resulted in the police being called. Thankfully, the situation didn’t escalate further, but with tempers frayed and patience long since exhausted, it was a close run thing.
All the while, we waited for TUI to give us an update, but none was forthcoming – but not for the lack of effort on the part of the ground staff who were doing their level best to relay messages and to stay level-headed in the face of understandably frustrated and exhausted passengers.
The question on everyone’s lips was very simple: when were we going home? Throughout the morning, nobody could answer. But eventually, the news filtered through: the return flight wouldn’t be going out until Monday. Within an hour, the reps had sourced hotels for everyone who was willing to spend another couple of nights in Tenerife. For others like us, that just wasn’t an option, so began the scramble to source alternate flights.
Two Ryanair flights had already sold out by the time I looked, but thankfully I was able to get two seats on Saturday evening’s Aer Lingus flight.
The moral of the story
S**t happens. In this inter-connected world, we are at the mercy of IT systems working properly, so when something so seemingly trivial as a systems update goes wrong, the effects can be catastrophic.
In the midst of all this chaos, I was grateful I’d booked my holiday with a bonded tour operator. As I scrambled to figure out a way out of the mess, I’d incurred considerable expenses: new flights, a night in a hotel, transport costs and meals for an unscheduled 24 hours. But I know that as long as my expenses were reasonable and I kept my receipts that I would be reimbursed for everything.
Of course not everyone can buy new flights or spend money they don’t have on a hotel, which is why some of the passengers were left in the terminal overnight and had to wait until TUI sourced hotels for them as they waited out the long delay.
But judging from my experience on Friday night, I am more than convinced that the team did the very best they could in a very bad situation, and for that I am grateful. The next day, when all of the passengers had either been sent to a hotel or had booked their own flights home, I spoke to a rep who had barely slept in 24 hours.
Her biggest frustration, she admitted, was not having clearcut information to give to people who were tired, stressed and at the ends of their rope. “But it’s my job to be here and help them in any way I can. Last night it wasn’t much of a consolation to anyone, but it was the best we could do.”
I got home on Saturday night at around 3am. The next morning, I got a message through the TUI app informing me that flight BLX1581 would now be going today, Monday, at 5.25pm. Home at last.
