*One family have booked 84 separate flights for family reunion in Montpellier
*A bride was ‘left in tears’ when her Greek wedding was postponed due to delays
*BA pilot Capt Stephen Wearing said chaos was ‘the worst he had ever seen’
*One desperate family forced to book 84 Separate flights
*Cancer patients stranded
PASSENGERS have revealed their fury at missing major life events due to the chaos caused by the British Airways global IT crash.
One family had to book 84 separate flights to make a 70th birthday and family reunion in France, while a British bride was left ‘in tears’ when her dream Greek wedding had to be postponed because her guests got stuck at Heathrow.
Meanwhile a pilot revealed he drove a stranded cancer patient home from Heathrow after they waited on a plane for almost four hours but never left the runway.
Margaret Watts was set to celebrate her 70th birthday in Montpellier, France, with 17 relatives in a £7,000 holiday.
But when the family arrived at Heathrow on Saturday they were faced with a three-hour wait for information on their flight and eventually gave up and went home to Oxford.
Her daughter Rebecca, 45, told The Sun: ‘To turn up for our dream trip to find that mess was heartbreaking.
‘BA staff were streaming out, smoking fags without a care. None could tell us what the problem was.’
The paper reported the family has since paid £2,000 for easyJet flights tomorrow but they face several changes at ‘far-flung airports’ and and ‘staggered flights’.
Rebecca added: ‘It’s devastating. All mum wanted for her birthday was us all together.’
Laura Thomson, from Guildford, was due to marry fiance Sam Sciortino on the island of Santorini on Sunday.
But the British Airways IT failure, which was blamed on a ‘power supply issue’, saw three bridesmaids and her brother get stuck at Heathrow Terminal 5 for 13 hours.
The guests eventually managed to leave the airport without their luggage after booking with a different airline.
Writing on Facebook, Miss Thomson said: ‘What can I say, I am just a shell of myself right now, my head is vacant, we are absolutely shattered.
‘Thanks to all the suppliers out here we have managed to swap dates, without too much loss.
‘I have been in tears with our dream of how it should of been slowly fading away, knowing I can’t share the day with my family the way I imagined, my sister in law and nieces no longer able to be bridesmaids, my brother no longer with his suit, but we are looking on the positives that at least they will all be here at the last hour.
‘I’m so sorry they have been through such hell at Terminal 5 and all the worry and fear, with BA making them cut calls off to loved ones, not being allowed to use their phones and not being advised what’s happening.
‘I just hope you all can enjoy Monday once it finally arrives and hopefully the topic of conversation on our special day isn’t BA.’
Miss Thompson and Mr Sciortino had flown out to Santorini earlier in the week and were due to be joined by their guests on Saturday, before the IT failure.
She told the BBC: ‘We’ve been planning our big day for two years only to be forced to rush around and change everything to take place a day later.
‘My brother is one of the groomsmen, and my nieces and sister-in-law are my bridesmaids, so naturally I wanted them to share the day with us.
‘They booked with British Airways because they thought it was a reliable company. We feel so let down.’
Daniel and Karen Martin arrived on honeymoon in the UK from Vancouver, Canada, and were due to fly to Greece as part of their honeymoon but now face delays and have lost their luggage.
Mr Martin told Sky News: ‘Our luggage is gone and we do not know when we are going to get it. We have no clothes.
‘We are flying to Greece today and we just hope we can get on a boat to Crete tomorrow to continue our honeymoon. We have 13 days of it left, but we have no clothes.’
Mrs Martin added: ‘We want British Airways to reimburse us for our loss.’
Captain Stephen Wearing, who has been a BA pilot for 29 years, said the situation was ‘unbelievable’ and ‘the worst chaos I’ve ever seen’.
He told the Telegraph he had driven a cancer-stricken patient home after the elderly man was left stranded after sitting on a plane for four hours without moving.
BA itself canceled another 27 flights and had 58 more delayed Monday.
The airline, which is part of the broader International Airlines Group, canceled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday after the IT outage, which it blamed on a power-supply problem. The glitch threw the plans of tens of thousands of travelers into disarray.
BA operates hundreds of flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on a typical day – and both are major hubs for worldwide travel.
Passengers, some of whom had spent the night at London’s Heathrow Airport, faced frustrating waits to learn if and when they could fly out.
Some endured hours-long lines to check in, reclaim lost luggage or rebook flights at Terminal 5, BA’s hub at Heathrow. Many complained about a lack of information from the airline.
BC chief executive Alex Cruz told Sky News he was ‘extremely sorry’ for all the passengers affected by the delays and cancellations.
He added there had been no loss of passengers’ private data and the no-fly terror watch list was also unaffected by the glitch.
Mr Cruz said: ‘Everyone at British Airways is totally committed to finding a solution for those customers affected.
‘We are extremely sorry and we will follow our obligations and provide as much flexibility as possible to Mr and Mrs Martin and the rest of the customers affected.’
