Thursday, 28 Nov 2024

‘Disaster’ TUI fury as bride-to-be left ‘broken’ after cancelling wedding over axed flight

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Seren Rounds was let down by TUI when her flight to Paphos which was scheduled for Saturday, May 28, was initially delayed for more than 24 hours. The bride-to-be arrived at the airport hours ahead, knowing the busy season the aviation industry is facing as the tourist period kicks off in most of the dreamy Mediterranean summer destinations. And just as Seren passed security along with her future husband and a group of 34 invitees from their friends and family, the delays were announced.

Seren’s step-dad Kevin Trenchard, 55 spoke to BristolLive about the chaos that had just begun.

He said: “They called us down to the gate to give us the bad news, which at that stage was that the flight had been delayed until 10.30pm Sunday, May 29, evening.”

According to BristolLive, the airport staff initially told the passengers they could only find 13 hotel rooms to accommodate those affected by the flight change.

Some of the wedding party members with young children left to find accommodation at a hotel in Bristol, ready to fly the next day.

But just after that, TUI announced their flight had instead been cancelled, and all the passengers would get a refund.

Asked about how Seren took the news, her step-dad said: “She was obviously broken.

“They’re actually in TUI in Newport trying to sort something else out but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.”

A spokesperson for TUI said: “We would like to apologise for the inconvenience to our customers on flight BY 6676 from Bristol to Paphos, on Saturday, May 28 who were delayed due to a combination of factors causing significant operational disruption.

“Unfortunately, we felt the impact to customers holiday was too great and took the difficult decision to cancel the flight.

“We contacted affected customers as soon as we became aware of the change and all customers will receive a full refund within 14 days.

“We understand how disappointing and frustrating this is and we do apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Passengers have been offered £200 vouchers along with a full refund and a £350 compensation sum per person by the airline.

Meanwhile, eleven people in the wedding party had already flown out to Paphos a few days earlier.

But the family realised it would not be possible to rebook 34 people in the party on flights in time for the wedding on June 2, and so the wedding had to be cancelled.

Mr Trenchard said of Seren: “Because she’s a school teacher we are limited to the available slots we can get away.

“She may still get married later this year but if we do that it might have to be somewhere like Vegas where we can just go and get it done without any big planning.

“If you want to get married [in the UK] it takes ages to find an available slot.”

And he added about the communication from TUI: “It’s been a disaster really. The communication from TUI was all via text or email, that’s where everybody found out about it.”

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