Family spend two days waiting for delayed Manchester Airport flight - only for TUI to cancel the holiday

A family have spoken out about their nightmare attempt to get from Manchester to Turkey with TUI - only for their whole holiday to be cancelled.

Karen Bhalla, 32, arrived at Manchester Airport with her husband, son, mum and mother-in-law on Sunday morning (29 May) hoping to fly to Antalya for the week. But after spending two days at the airport, and a night in a hotel, they still weren't able to get away for the school holidays.

The M.E.N understands that the airline even sought the help of an Air Tanker plane - which is primarily used for military and humanitarian operations - but it wasn't able to fly.

READ MORE:Greater Manchester's Clean Air Zone should be cut to city centre, says government

Speaking to the M.E.N, the mum-of-one from Warrington says the family have now wasted a week's worth of annual leave, and two days trapped in Manchester Airport - with no holiday to show for it.

The latest horror story comes as TUI announced they would be cancelling six flights a day, 186 in total, from Manchester Airport between May 31 and June 30 to tackle staff shortages and 'ongoing disruption.'

"It's been absolutely awful," Karen said. "We went on Sunday to Manchester Airport where the queues through security were really bad, but we got through and still had time to spare.

"Then literally two hours before our flight TUI sent us a text saying it had been cancelled. They gave no explanation why and we didn't know what to do. There was nobody around to ask or help us.

"They then sent us a message to say we’d be taken out of the airport and to a hotel. We waited outside Manchester Airport for a coach for over an hour and nothing came."

Karen said eventually she and her husband decided to book a taxi to the hotel, which was