STRANDED holidaymakers fear they will have to sleep in an airport for up to 12 days before they can get home.
Pensioner Ken Blanks, 71, said he and his wife had to refuse Las Palmas’ offer of a £50pp per night hotel until the next flight in just under two weeks because they cannot afford it.
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Ken Blanks and his wife Lisa may be stranded for 12 days before they can get homeCredit: Ken Blanks
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Elsewhere, passengers at Palma Airport slept on the floorCredit: NCJ Media
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Travellers at a packed Stansted Airport todayCredit: Dan Charity
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Exhausted passengers sleeping in a trolley in Palma AirportCredit: NCJ Media
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Passengers at Gatwick Airport waiting to board planesCredit: Peter Jordan
Other young families are also stuck in the airport in Gran Canaria with children without anywhere they can afford to stay in.
Ken, from Bristol, blasted easyJet for not offering them anywhere to stay and not communicating with them.
He said: “It’s absolutely disgusting.”
He also suffers heart problems and is terrified because his medication will not last over the next 12 days.
He told The Sun: “I’ve finished my holiday in Gran Canaria but there’s nobody from easyJet talking to us. They don’t care a damn about us.
“The next flight is in 12 days so we are stuck here.
“The airport offered some families with kids hotels but they have to keep getting taxis there and back. It’s 200 euros from the airport to the hotel. No one has the money for it.
“I can’t afford a hotel. And there’s nobody here to tell us anything.”
Ken said: “It’s midday and we still can’t contact easyJet, even in the airport no one knows what is happening.
“There’s an easyJet flight arriving about 2pm but that flight is for the people due to leave today.
“This is shocking, it leaves three flights cancelled yesterday we are still in limbo and we have not been offered drinks or food.”
He continued: “Some were offered a hotel for the night, taxi fare plus hotel cost paid for by themselves, while others like me cannot afford this offer and we still don’t know what is happening tonight.
“I am now at my wits end and just don’t know what to do.”
Meanwhile, Matthew Page said easyJet put them up in a hotel for one night in Tunisia but have been told to fend for themselves until a flight becomes available, which may not be until next week.
He said: “EasyJet have been no help at all. They have put us up for one night and then we have to fend for ourselves.
“We have three children with us and apparently the next flight home is in over a week.”
EasyJet have been contacted for comment.
It comes after summer holidays ended in misery for thousands when a technical fault brought down the UK’s air traffic control system.
Tonight, National Air Traffic Services chief executive Martin Rolfe said the failure was caused by systems suspending automatic processing after an influx of data.
Thousands of holidaymakers were hit by bank holiday travel delays, which started yesterday when a “technical issue” grounded flights heading to and from the UK.
Despite the issue being said to have been fixed by yesterday afternoon, knock-on disruption has massively affected tourists.
Passengers due to fly to Newcastle were seen bunking down on the floor of Palma airport overnight, with their flight already facing huge delays following severe weather problems.
And some holidaymakers were even sleeping in trolleys, with one passenger even using a towel to make a tent-like canopy between barriers.
Dozens more cancellations across Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton Airports were announced on Tuesday morning as airlines struggle to recover from the four-hour failure.
In the worst single day’s disruption to UK flying since the Icelandic volcano in 2010, an estimated 200,000 passengers woke up today in unfamiliar surroundings.
It comes after reports that a blunder by a French airline may have sparked the air traffic control chaos in the UK.
Downing Street did not rule out the possibility that an inputting error by a French airline could have caused the disruption.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “There’s going to be, think you’ll know that there’s going to be an investigation by the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and a report shared with Government.
“I think (Transport Secretary) Mark Harper confirmed this morning he’ll be getting that in days.
“I’m not going to pre-empt that. I’ve seen, obviously, various bits of speculation, but I’m not going to pre-empt the work that needs to be done.”
But he added that experts had confirmed it was a “technical issue, not a cybersecurity incident”.
Helen Clayton says she’s stuck in Mallorca after booking a three-day break over the bank holiday.
She says she’s managed to rebook her flight but it’s not until next Sunday with tensions seeing “fists flying” at the airport.
Helen told Sky News: “Been put up in a hotel tonight, no idea what happens thereafter. I’ve no money left, I’ve no clean clothes and I’m meant to be at work today.
“There’s thousands like me and things were extremely heated at Palma with fists flying and security stepping in.”
Frustrated tourists also took to social media to plead with airlines for help after being left in limbo.
Holidaymakers on Twitter claimed that they were forced to sleep in the airport after the shambles.
Frustrated mum Emma Chambers is worried about her deaf son Zak who had to spend the night on the floor in Tenerife Airport.
Emma says that the 18-year-old’s implant batteries for his cochlear implant may run out soon and he was told he could not fly home til September 9.
She exclusively told The Sun: “This was his first ever holiday with friends to celebrate getting into Uni.
“After the air traffic disruption they went to the airport and were told it was cancelled. Zak hasn’t slept.
“He only has enough batteries for his cochlear implants for today.”
‘TENSIONS RUNNING HIGH’
Emma said that Zak has been forced to use his scholarship money to fly from Tenerife to Bordeaux and then to Cork.
From here he must get a train from Cork to Dublin before switching to get to Belfast via another train.
She added: “All easyJet have said is that they can make their own way back or wait until September 9, though he starts uni on September 8.
“My son is resilient and smart but once he loses his cochlear implant support he has no ability to hear and communicate.
“Right now he is scared, anxious and tensions are running high.”
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Zak and his two pals have been stranded at the airportCredit: Emma Chambers
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With airlines still facing huge issues, they face a long route homeCredit: Emma Chambers
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Travellers forced to sleep on the floor in Stansted AirportCredit: Bav Media
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Passengers at Birmingham Airport this morning with flights still delayed and cancelledCredit: SWNS
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Tourists sleeping at Palma Airport in MallorcaCredit: EPA
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Airports are now heaving with passengers strandedCredit: Dan Charity
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Luke Morrison-Williams and his two kids are stranded at a hotel in Hurghada with a return flight in nine daysCredit: Luke Morrison-Williams
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Luke said young passengers, wheelchair users and others were struggling in the heatCredit: Luke Morrison-Williams
Meanwhile Luke Morrison-Williams, 46, is currently stuck in Hurghada, Egypt, with his wife, 39, and two young kids aged 12 and 8.
The frustrated passenger says they were put into a hotel yesterday for only one night and are now struggling in the heat without water.
They have been waiting in reception for hours along with other beleaguered travellers having not eaten since the early hours of the morning.
He told The Sun: “We have been rebooked on a flight in nine days time but easyJet won’t provide accommodation and we can’t afford a hotel.
“There are many people here in the same situation, people in wheelchairs, small children.
“The children are overheated as the hotel won’t even provide water.”
To make matters worse Luke claims that the rep from easyJet did not help and then “turned off his phone”.
Luke said: “I am on heart medication which has run out now which is another concern. We really don’t know what to do.
“We are clinging onto a hope that an easyJet rep will appear however he informed another lady that easyJet would not help us and then turned his phone off.”
Steph Wagstaff was due to fly back from the Canary Islands to Bristol after a family holiday with her partner and four young kids.
But the family were forced to bunk at the airport overnight with her kids sleeping on chairs, a stroller and a blow-up rubber ring.
And one couple fear their dream Italian wedding could be off the cards after the flight chaos.
Adam Ashall-Kelly, 35, and his fiancée Christine Marriott, 36, had their flight from Manchester to Verona cancelled yesterday.
They are due to get married in Malcesine near Lake Garda on Saturday but need to register their wedding at a local court before they can be legally wed.
Adam told BBC News: “It’s incredibly stressful.
“We’ve looked at whether we can get a flight to Paris and then a train, but there’s strikes. We’ve looked at driving all the way there and we’re thinking about maybe getting the Eurostar.
“We’re looking at so many options, if someone had a solution and said we had to leave by 16:00 today we’d go.”
Meanwhile, one lady at Heathrow was in tears after sitting there for over 20 hours waiting for her return flight to the USA.
300 Ryanair passengers were also left stranded in Gran Canaria after the technical fault, reports Sky News.
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Adam Kelly and his fiancee Christine Marriott are worried they will miss out on their dream weddingCredit: Adam Ashall-Kelly
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Glum passengers have struggled with the delaysCredit: EPA
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Passengers waiting at Stansted Airport are exhausted and fed upCredit: AFP
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Holidaymakers at Gatwick are stuck waiting for the next update
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Exhausted passengers sleeping at Gatwick AirportCredit: Peter Jordan
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