Passengers who boarded a plane to Turkey have described the ‘nightmare’ of learning it had been cancelled on the tarmac after nearly six hours of delays.

The plane from Cardiff to Dalaman was originally due to take off at around 6pm on Monday, but travellers say the gates did not open until 8.45pm.

After waiting 45 minutes on the runway, they were allegedly told by staff that takeoff had to be pushed back while staff dealt with a drunk passenger.

Gail Carpenter, 60, and wife Rebecca Calvente-Lopez, 45, say they were told to fasten their seatbelts at around 10pm but did not start moving until nearly midnight.

Gail said: ‘Then [at around midnight] we went up the runway and turned around in the plane.

‘And then were told the flight had been cancelled and that they were returning us to the terminal.

‘All hell broke loose. Nobody knew anything. We were all waiting and nobody was coming back to us with anything.’

The couple, both NHS workers, said passengers did not get back inside the airport till past 1am and were not given food or drink vouchers despite spending around three hours on the plane with no refreshments.

They were subsequently there were only 15 rooms available in the airport’s hotels and that everyone else would have to go home until the flight was rescheduled.

Tui staff appeared apologetic but failed to proactively inform customers of their travel compensation rights, Gail added.

They managed to board another plane the next day, but only after several more hours of waiting with no information.

Gail continued: ‘We are stressed and upset. It has been an absolute nightmare. This will probably be my last holiday to be honest.

‘We both work for the NHS [and] we needed this holiday after waiting and working through Covid and it’s been our worst nightmare from beginning to end. And it’s still not over – nothing today will surprise me.’

Tui apologised for the delay, which it said was ‘due to operational issues’, and said all affected customers had boarded new flights to Turkey.

A spokesperson for the company added: ‘We aim to communicate with customers as quickly as possible, with accurate and clear information, if there are any delays or changes to their holiday but appreciate we fell short of our usual high standards yesterday.’

Spencer Birns, the CEO of Cardiff Airport, said there ‘appears to have been failures’ in Tui’s passenger care and pledged to ‘continue to work with [all] airlines to ensure that disruption and upset is kept to a minimum during these circumstances’.

He added: ‘We understand that last minute delays are incredibly disappointing and we’d like to apologise again to passengers for their experience, and thank them for their understanding.’

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