'It's literally a holiday from hell': Birmingham couple stuck in Thailand 'for two weeks' amid Middle East war

"It's literally a holiday from hell",  Laura Webster from Birmingham says, as she is currently stuck in Thailand alongside husband Paul, due to cancelled flights. 

The couple are currently trapped in Phuket and have been told by their travel agent that there are no available flights to get them home during the next two weeks.

Laura and Paul, who both work in insurance software, were booked to fly with Emirates to Dubai on Wednesday for a three-night stay before taking another flight to Birmingham.

But their flights were cancelled because of the conflict in the Middle East, and they are unable to find alternatives.

The couple both have young children back in the UK who are being looked after by former partners.

Mrs Webster, 40, told the Press Association: “We’ve got work, we’ve got kids. We want to get back ASAP. We don’t care if that means four flights. 

"The travel agent said there’s none on their central reservation system.They keep trying to put us on Emirates via Dubai and the flights keep getting cancelled because of the airspace.

“When we’ve tried to look for flights ourselves, there’s just none. We have been looking at trying to go via Singapore, we looked at Hong Kong."

She added: “My husband found one via Japan for £10,000 each, which obviously we’re not going to do. Unless you have a direct flight that’s already booked from Bangkok to London, you’re stuffed for two weeks at least.”

She explained that their travel agent arranged for them to get an extra three nights of accommodation, but then they will “have to fend for ourselves” as “you can’t claim for it on insurance, because it’s war”.

She added: “It’s just horrible. It’s literally a holiday from hell. We had two days of a nice holiday, and then since Saturday we’ve just had such stress and anxiety of not knowing when you can get home to your kids.”

Emirates has told passengers it is operating “a reduced flight schedule until further notice”. It said passengers transiting in Dubai “will only be accepted for travel if their connecting flight is operating”.

The vast majority of flights to and from the region have been cancelled because of widespread airspace closures since the conflict between Iran and the US and its allies began on Saturday.

This has thrown travel plans into disarray for thousands of UK nationals who planned to return home from Asia and Australia.

Passengers booked on a flight arriving in the UK from outside Europe with an airline such as Emirates, which is not based in the UK or the European Union, are not covered by UK consumer law.

This means they have no right to be re-booked with another airline if it will get them to their destination quicker.