Hundreds stranded at Birmingham Airport following flight cancellations to wait long hours without food or drink, which followed in the wake of an IT system crash. Now, this left the travelers pretty frustrated already, standing there and pointing out the hassle airlines have to go through following such unpredictable technical issues.

Chaos broke out at Birmingham Airport as Tui flights were canceled, leaving their passengers on the floor—without food or drink—for hours. The trouble started when Tui’s IT systems crashed, as major disruptions were reported on Friday.

Katie Potter, from Rugeley, Staffordshire, was another caught in the chaos. The 25-year-old had been due to fly to Turkey with her family but ended up spending nearly 12 hours at the airport. It felt like we were prisoners, she said, after describing how passengers were moved from their boarding gate to the baggage reclaim area without any clear information.

A spokesperson from Tui apologized, saying they had to make the difficult decision to cancel several outbound flights because of the global IT issue.

Katie and her family were booked to fly to Antalya at 3:30 PM, but it all went wrong. They arrived at the airport around 11:00 AM to be told the flight was delayed for an hour. When they got to the boarding gate, they waited for one more hour before the captain broadcast that the flight had been canceled due to staffing problems.

‘All our baggage was already on the plane,’ said Katie. He has confirmed that he was ninety percent optimistic that the flight would be rescheduled for the following day and that the hotel room would be provided for anybody having such needs. Only afterwards did the nightmare turn on.

Passengers were transferred to the baggage reclaim area as they awaited an outbound Emirates flight. More than two hours, they had to spend there deprived of refreshments and food, and even toilets were out of bounds. “It was absolute chaos. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Katie said. “Children were crying, and there was no air conditioning. The sun was beaming down on us.”

According to Katie, a dance teacher, there were four Tui flights canceled, but no Tui or airport staff anywhere to speak with for help. Eventually, passengers received emails from the airline confirming their flight cancellations and offering compensation vouchers. Katie finally reached home at midnight after rebooking her holiday with another airline on Sunday and retrieving her bags.

One passenger, who didn’t wish to be named, described waiting at the gate for around four hours before the pilot informed them that there wasn’t enough staff to fly the plane. The man said the terminal was “like a greenhouse” and he feared for people with medical conditions. “It was stressful. First, they said it was a staffing issue, then it changed to an IT problem,” he said.

On Friday morning, there was a global IT failure that hit several companies: banks, media, train stations, and airlines. A Birmingham Airport spokesperson said, “Despite the IT issues, most flights operated as normal although there were some delays to check-in.”.

Speaking to the BBC, Tui said in a statement that it was very well aware of how much disruption the IT outage had caused to its services and apologized to customers. “While the original IT issue was beyond our control, an essential system needed for our airline operations remained unstable late into the night,” the spokesperson said. “We are deep in apologizing for the inconvenience caused to our customers.”

Tui reassured passengers that flights home from their holidays would operate as normal, adding that anyone flying out this weekend should be checking their website regularly for updates.

The incident demonstrates the problem that an airline faces when random technical issues occur, often leaving customers frustrated, annoyed, and desiring better communication and support in times of crisis.