Palma (Spain) (AFP)

Standing in the long queue or sitting on their suitcases, British customers Thomas Cook anxiously waited Monday at the airport of Palma de Mallorca to return home after the bankruptcy of the travel giant.

Clare Osborne, a 49-year-old bookkeeper, worries that she will not be back in Glasgow to attend the funeral of a relative on Tuesday when she is offered to register for Manchester.

"We're supposed to leave for Manchester airport at 21H00 but then it's 3h30 drive to Glasgow," she says.

"So it's really tight and we do not know if it will be really at 9:00 pm, I'm really stressed."

Volunteers distribute water to passengers trapped in line for Manchester flight, which is moving slowly, while UK government officials dressed in yellow jackets wearing Union Jack survey the main airport of the island. Balearic archipelago, the third largest airport in Spain, to inform tourists.

"They helped us a lot," says 57-year-old John Raid, who is queuing up with his wife and grandson. The family had to fly to Newcastle on Monday morning, but they were finally transferred on an evening flight from Iberia to Manchester.

There, a bus will wait for them to take them to Newcastle, about 145 kilometers away.

Mr. Raid explains that Thomas Cook's staff helped them on Monday morning and that they were transferred to the airport for free. "These are things that happen," he concludes philosophically.

- Last days of vacation ruined -

But other passengers complain that they did not receive any information from the company and learned of the return flight by other passengers.

"We have been told so many different things about our final destination, and the latest news seems to be Manchester," said Mary Cara, a 50-year-old secretary who was due to return to Glasgow.

Julie Payne, a 34-year-old salesgirl from Newcastle, regrets that uncertainty over Thomas Cook's spell has spoiled his last days of vacation at the beach in Mallorca.

"We spent so much time worrying about what was going to happen, watching the news, instead of relaxing," she said sitting on her suitcase waiting to register for Manchester with two friends.

Mary Allardycee, a 63-year-old sales assistant who was also due to return to Glasgow, had heard about the company's problems "but you never think it's going to happen to you".

"But unfortunately, it happened, and we can not do anything about it, so we're just sitting there waiting to catch a flight," she adds.

© 2019 AFP