Passengers scheduled to fly out of the UK with Thomas Cook continued to turn up at Gatwick and Manchester airports on Monday, with some saying they had only learned of the company’s collapse on their way to the airport and others complaining of mounting prices on other airlines.

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Ruth Caruana, 48, went to the deserted Thomas Cook desk at Gatwick with her husband and daughter to inquire about her flight back home to Malta.

“I tried to check in last night, but they wouldn’t let me,” Caruana said. At the airport, she was told by a stand-in Tui member of staff she would have to try to rebook with another airline.

“We booked three weeks ago and paid about €700. We’ve been scammed. If they knew they were going to close down they shouldn’t have let us buy the tickets. We have nowhere to stay now. I will now try to get another flight, I hope the insurance will cover it.”

John Bell and his family also approached the Thomas Cook desk to get information about their flight to Dalaman, Turkey for a two-week holiday, which puts their return flights outside the period in which passengers with booked plane tickets would be repatriated to the UK by the government.

“We found out at 3.30am,” Bell said. “We used a credit card, so hopefully that’ll give us some protection. Everything is getting booked up real fast now, so we don’t know when or if we will be going.”

Bell said he thought Brexit could have had something to do with Thomas Cook’s downfall. “Then again, their troubles have been going on for years.”

Friends Judy and Sheila were scheduled to fly out for a week’s holiday in Antalya, Turkey and found out about the collapse of the holiday firm when they arrived at Gatwick, where they were handed a Thomas Cook information letter.

Quick guide The history of Thomas Cook Show Hide Thomas Cook owes its name to a humble and deeply religious 32-year-old cabinet-maker who, one June morning in 1841, hiked the 15 miles from his home in Market Harborough to Leicester, to attend a temperance meeting. The former Baptist preacher believed that the ills of Victorian society stemmed largely from alcohol and, presumably fatigued from his walk, realised he could deploy the power of Britain’s flourishing rail network to help spread the word. Addressing the temperance meeting, he suggested that a train be hired to carry the movement’s supporters to the next meeting in Loughborough. Thus, on 5 July 1841, some 500 passengers travelled by a special train for the 24-mile round trip, paying a shilling apiece. Over the next few years, Cook laid on ever more trains, introducing thousands of Britons to train travel for the first time. The first such outing to be run for commercial purposes was a trip to Liverpool in 1845. Over the next decade or so, the business expanded to offer overseas trips, to France, Switzerland, Italy and beyond, to the US, Egypt and India. His more business-minded son John expanded the tour operator and its reach was such that the government enlisted its expertise in an effort, ultimately in vain, to relieve General Gordon at the siege of Khartoum in 1885. John’s three sons inherited the business, which incorporated as Thos Cook & Son Ltd in 1924 and benefited from the increasing ease of international travel. Its first flirtation with collapse came during the second world war, when the government requisitioned some of its assets and it was sold to Britain’s railway companies, effectively a nationalisation. But it boomed in the postwar years as growing prosperity fuelled the appetite for holidays and it returned to private ownership in 1972. Since then, it has changed hands and changed shape via a series of mergers and takeovers. It nearly collapsed in 2011 but averted its demise with a bailout deal funded by banks. Now, after 178 years of operation, it has ceased trading.

Like many others, they had booked a package via a third-party operator just two weeks ago, which included flights with Thomas Cook.

“We even have our boarding passes for our flight that is now not going to happen,” Sheila said. “We were told to try and rebook. Our travel operator said we should pay for new tickets and we would then get reimbursed, but I’m sure any extras like transfers we’ll have to pay for will leave us out of pocket.”

They were able to rebook tickets for a flight leaving before 10pm with another airline, for a “small fortune”, and were told by their travel operator they would be refunded for the original cost of the Thomas Cook flights.

“I asked, ‘What about the additional cost?’ but they haven’t said anything about that,” Judy said.

“All I want to do is lie down,” Sheila added.

By midday, there were only a handful of travellers still queueing at the Thomas Cook customer service desk at Gatwick.

Stranded passengers booked to fly on cancelled Thomas Cook flights from Manchester airport complained of rising prices on other airlines.

Apart from a few stranded passengers frantically trying to book other flights, the former Thomas Cook check-in desks at terminal one stood eerily empty of staff and queues, with the branding removed.

Wedding planner Catalena Fernandes had been due to fly home to Cancún, Mexico on Monday morning. She had been travelling around the UK for two weeks and had two weddings scheduled for this week in Mexico.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The closed deserted Thomas Cook check-in desks at Gatwick. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

“I was looking for information but my flight wasn’t Atol protected so I cannot claim for a return flight. I can just ask for my money back, but flights [on other airlines] are very expensive right now. I don’t know why my flight wasn’t Atol protected. Like any normal person, I booked it, and thought it would be OK.”

She added: “I am searching for other flights but I needed to be there today. I don’t know what I’ll do. It is a difficult situation.”

Kristina Terwilliger was in Manchester, supposedly in transit, but had been stranded for four hours. She had flown from Glasgow, with a flight booked to JFK airport in New York to visit family on Condor Airlines, a subsidiary owned by Thomas Cook.

Play Video 0:52 Passengers react to chaos as Thomas Cook collapses – video

Last night the airline said it would continue operations, but Terwilliger arrived to find her flight cancelled. “They let me through and sent my bag to JFK, it was on the way and they had to get it back. I’ve talked to Condor, there’s no way to get through to Thomas Cook. There’s nothing, no contact with Thomas Cook, no money back.

“It’s just that getting a flight out of here is just hard in general and prices are just going up and up. Everyone is trying to get out of here.”

Sidney Matias was trying to get home to Orlando after a holiday in the UK. He said: “I’ve had no information. I bought an extra bag yesterday, which they charged me for, so I woke up this morning and I came to the airport. I didn’t know they were going to be cancelled. The only information is these guys gave me a piece of paper so I’m going to have to buy another flight.”

Jerome Sinclair, who works for the fashion brand Burberry, was also booked to fly to New York on Condor, for work. He said: “I know there had been things on the news [but] I’d been on holiday the week before so I’d not been following it that closely and I’d not had a phone call or email. My flight was Condor so I was just hoping it would still be running.

“When I arrived at security, my boarding card flashed up to seek assistance. So now I’ve got to try to get to New York today from somewhere but the train station is closed.”