Family Sat on Floor of Plane Where Their Seats Should Have Been

Passenger planes of German airliners Lufthansa and TUI pass one another at Tegel Airport in Berlin, Germany, on July 29, 2008. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

A family had to sit on the floor of an airplane for a two-hour flight in the empty spaces where their seats should have been as they flew back from their summer vacation.

The airline, Tui, said that the airplane had been switched at the last minute, and the replacement aircraft had a different seating layout.

The Taylor family boarded the flight from Menorca to Birmingham after their summer vacation. They hunted down their seat numbers—41 D, E, and F—in the usual way, looking at the labels above the seats.  They found the numbers,  but when they looked down, there were no seats, according to a Jan. 14 BBC report.

“We all just looked at each other as if to say ‘Where’s our seats gone?’” Paula Taylor said.

She was travelling with her husband, Ian, and her 10-year-old daughter Brooke.

The flight had only one spare seat, which the crew gave to Brooke.

Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had to sit in the flip seats normally reserved for the crew as the airplane took off.

Birmingham Airport in the West Midlands, UK, on Dec. 5, 2018. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

But after take-off, they could not stay in those seats, because the crew was busy serving food and other items stored behind.

So Mr and Mrs Taylor found a place on the floor where they could sit—the space their seats should have been. Brooke did not want to sit alone, so she joined them on the floor.