The battle for holiday compensation is rumbling on for families who endured stressful delays to their Tui holidays at Norwich Airport.
The holiday provider endured a series of problems with Spanish airline Albastar flying out of Norwich, particularly in the summer of 2022 as the airline industry struggled to recover from the Covid pandemic.
As reported earlier this week on a Happisburgh family who lost the first day of their dream £6,500 getaway to Mallorca due to a 10-hour overnight delay.
After being contacted by this newspaper, a Tui spokesman confirmed "Albastar is paying EU 261 flight delay compensation" to Matt Lines and his family.
That has prompted a succession of similarly fed-up people to get in touch but Tui declined to comment further on the issue and Mallorca-based Albastar has proved difficult to contact.
Among them is a family who live to the north of the city and were stuck at the airport for 43 hours.
Nick Archer spent £6,000 with Tui to travel to Mallorca on Friday, July 29, 2022, with his wife and two daughters.
They were left waiting for a replacement flight almost two whole days after the initial plane burst a tyre on landing at Norwich Airport.
The 56-year-old has spent nearly two years trying to claim back almost £1,000 in compensation.
Mr Archer said: "After the tyre burst we sat there with two young children at the time - aged 11 and 16 - for 12 hours before being sent home for the day.
"Then I received a message asking us to arrive at 6am on Sunday but that was also wrong and we got sent home again before, eventually, we departed on July 31 at 2pm - a whole 43 hours later.
"We lost two days of our seven-day holiday and to make matters worse when we arrived at the hotel, our room had been given to someone else because we'd been classed as a no-show."
Now, nearly two years later, Mr Archer is still trying to claim £900 in compensation but hasn't received any correspondence from either company.
He added: "Tui has just washed its hands of the situation and while I received an email, from Albastar, saying I'd have the compensation in my account in 90 days this was in September 2022 and I've heard nothing since.
"The worst part is that Tui still uses Albastar despite all these issues and doesn't seem to care - it's so frustrating and I won't be using Tui again."
Lydia Hunt, 43, is another from Norwich still fighting to get money back.
Lydia and her husband Steven took their two children and one of their son’s friends to Mallorca last July.
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Their flight from Norwich Airport was delayed by 11 hours and the family is still waiting to receive their compensation.
“We were due to take off at 12.15pm but didn’t leave the airport until after 11pm,” said Lydia.
“We had booked a half board package through the Tui app but, as Albastar was the delayed airline, we were told that complaints and claims for compensation would have to go through them.
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“We lost the afternoon, evening meal, first night of our holiday and the breakfast the next morning, as we got to our hotel at 5am and needed to sleep.”
A trail of emails between Lydia, Tui and AlbaStar, which started on July 30, reveals the “extremely high volume of claims” that the airline was experiencing at the time.
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Lydia was promised that her claim would have reached its resolution by the end of October.
“They assure us that they are getting through everything and that no one has been forgotten,” said a Tui representative in an email to her.
However, Lydia has yet to receive any form of compensation from the company.
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