Delighted for the happy end to the story, but in my airline in recent times we would have required flight ops permission to do stuff like that. If so, hats off to TUI Ops if the captain contacted home base. But if the Captain in TUI has the commercial authority to turn around like that, hats in the air to TUI who are still prepared to give the Captain the on the spot decision. Not many airlines do.
Used to be different in all airlines. Once you left home base you were like a ship trading cutter from the past, you did what was required to better the company and were given open authority. "No one is interested in the storms you weathered, but whether you brought in the ship". That is why we were paid a good sum, to make those decisions away from base, with only rudimentary HF contact with Ops. When we got contact we told them what we were doing, we did not ask.
Incoming from 21st century FLT OPS people...