A British family was forced to sit on the floor of an airplane after their assigned seats were missing

Boeing

• Three flyers were forced to sit on the floor of a TUI Airlines flight when their assigned seats were missing from the airplane.
• The German airline said an unscheduled plane change meant the family's assigned seats were missing.
• The family was seated in jump seats normally reserved for the flight crew, for takeoff and landing.

When Paula Taylor and her family boarded their TUI Airways flight home to Birmingham, England from Menorca, Spain, they said they were shocked to find their assigned seats did not exist, according to a BBC report.

The three flyers were accommodated in the crew's jump seats during takeoff and landing, the BBC first reported from its show "Rip Off: Britain," but when the flight crew needed the galley space to provide drink service during the flight, there was nowhere for the family to sit except the empty space where their seats should have been.

Blaming the incident on a "last minute plane change," the German airline refunded the family's fares and added a 30 pound ($38.19) "goodwill gesture," the BBC reported.

Read more: TUI Airways has been accused of sexism for giving stickers to boys that said 'future pilot' while girls got 'future cabin crew'

"We made sure we were three hours early at the airport to check in early just to make sure we got seats together," Taylor said on the show, which aired Tuesday, per The Telegraph.

"We went straight to the front and we were very excited by the fact we had managed to sit together."

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority is investigating the incident, according to the BBC. TUI Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TUI operates the roughly 2.5-hour flight between Birmingham, England's third-largest city, to the Spanish holiday island of Menorca on a seasonal basis, from May to October, according to its published schedules.