‘We’re not animals’

16:43, 23 Aug 2025Updated 18:11, 23 Aug 2025

One of the disgruntled passenger’s daughters sleeps on the floor at Larnaca Airport(Image: Submitted)

A holidaymaker says she and her family are among dozens of passengers on a flight to Manchester who say they have been ‘abandoned’ at an airport in Cyrpus for approaching 24 hours.

Rio, 41, her husband and her twin daughters, 11, were due to fly back to Manchester Airport on a TUI flight at midnight on Friday night (August 22) following a two-week break on the Mediterranean island.

Shortly after arriving at Larnaca airport, at around 9pm, they said they were told the flight had been delayed and given an 11 Euro food voucher.

They eventually boarded at around 3am (Cypriot time) on Saturday morning (August 23). They say were sat on the plane on the tarmac for over two hours and that they were told a hydraulics on a baggage loader had failed, leaving it stuck behind the aircraft.

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There was then further bad news, with the family from Shrewsbury saying they were told at around 5am the crew had passed the cut-off point to fly and legally had to rest for around 12 hours.

“One of the pilots came on the address system and said there would be coaches and hotels,” she said. They were told to get off the plane, but claim they have been stuck in the airport ever since awaiting news.

Rio’s twin daughters try to get some sleep(Image: Submitted)

Rio said her kids had been forced to sleep on the airport’s ‘freezing’ marble floor and that she had resorted to using paper bags to cushion and cover them.

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She said after hours without any update, a staff member informed the hundreds of waiting passengers at around 9am that 90 hotel rooms had been secured an hour away.

Passengers waiting for information(Image: Submitted)

Those are said to have been offered in order of priority, and Rio said she ‘didn’t even try’. She added: “It kicked off big style. People were shouting ‘you can’t treat us like this, we’re not animals’.

“If we’d have known from the start we could maybe have arranged our own hotel, but we were told that it was already sorted. And once the time passed, we were too scared to leave as we didn’t know when the flight is meant to be or whether they were going to cancel it altogether,” she said.

“Also it is touching 40 degrees outside, and we don’t have our luggage, so we wouldn’t be prepared for the weather. We haven’t got any swimwear, any sun cream.

Rio says her family had a rough night(Image: Submitted)

“This is a family flight, there are loads of tiny kids. Everyone has had to try and sleep on the floor. The chairs are all metal with arm rests so you can’t lie down. So all the kids, including ours, have just slept on the floor. Lots of people just haven’t slept at all.

“We had got a 15 Euro voucher 6am and then a 20 Euros at 5:15pm. It sounds okay but it’s so expensive here you can barely get anything for that here.”

Passengers have now been told the flight is due to leave at 1.15am (Cypriot time) on Sunday morning (August 24).

Passengers are sprawled out across the floor at the airport, it is claimed(Image: Submitted)

“I feel really mad,” Rio added. “I appreciate these things happen. Technical issues etcetera, they happen. But to be abandoned by your tour operator for so many hours like this is just ridiculous. It’s so disappointing and frustrating.”

A second passenger said some passengers are in hotels organised by TUI, some have made their own arrangements, and some are still in the airport.

She said she left the airport as ‘sleeping on the floor wasn’t an acceptable option’, adding: “We had been up for 24 hours by the time we left.”

She described the situation as a ‘complete shambles’, adding: “There was clearly no plan for this.”

TUI has been approached for comment.