A bride-to-be is relieved to be finally home after her hen party was stranded abroad following the cancellation of their flight.
Kate Williams and her friends were due to fly back on Tuesday after enjoying three days in the sun in Benidorm.
But the 12-strong party was grounded after the cancellation of their Norweigan Air flight from Alicante to Manchester due to industrial action with French air traffic control.
They only found out about the cancellation of their plane by text message after a delay of seven hours at the airport.
The airline said it would find the group alternative flights - but Kate said that they were left on their own to fend for themselves.
The friends finally arrived home yesterday (Sat) afternoon after travel agent Maria Goddard back in Huddersfield managed to book them onto a flight with airline Vueling.
But they had to fork out for accommodation, food and other expenses at a cost of more than £3,000 - which Kate expects to rise once the group have totted up all of their receipts.
Weary Kate, from Clayton West, said: “I’m traumatised. I have never been so scared and it was such a relief to finally get on that plane back home.
“When I woke up this morning I was crippled with anxiety over all of the money we spent.
“We’re getting married in four weeks and will have to cancel our honeymoon to try and claw back some of the money.”
The group had to pay £260 each for seats on their new plane as opposed to £45 each for their cancelled flight.
Two members of the hen party were forced to use their credit cards to pay £550 for a basic apartment in San Juan to stay in.
Kate, 39, said: “We just had to come to terms with the fact that we were stuck there until Saturday.
“The apartment was on a really nice beach and we just went there every day and had to survive on McDonald’s because that’s all we could afford.
“One of the girls, Lesley Crank, had been due to go out in Manchester for her birthday on Friday the 13th.
“One of my friends ran out of blood pressure medication and had to pay 30 Euros and another twisted her knee and we had to get her a crutch - she went to A&E when we got home.”
Kate said that while she and her friends made the best of a bad situation and had some fun together they were forced to miss important commitments back home.
One of them had to pay extra to keep her dog in kennels, another missed her daughter’s special school assembly and several of them lost wages.
Kate explained: “It’s the inconvenience and lost earnings that we can’t make up for.
“I’m a hairdresser and I’ve lost two day’s wages, I had a wedding party booked in on Saturday but fortunately somebody else could cover this.
“We spent a lot of money on duty free alcohol at the airport but then we had to leave them behind because we couldn’t get them through back through security.”
“I’m trying to not let it consume me and we did have some laughs but we were really anxious about coming back and it’s been a hard pill to swallow.”
Norweigan Air apologised for the cancellation of the flight and said that passengers were offered a free flight rebooking or a full refund.
It said it opened a dedicated hotline and its airport teams were on hand to arrange hotel accommodation to passengers.
But Kate, due to marry her partner Chris Leavy, at Huddersfield Town Hall next month, said that she and her friends felt abandoned by the airline.
She said: “It was chaos at the airport and we were getting no information.
“We were offered alternative flights for October 24 and 28. Then we were phoned back and told that there was no solution,
“The airline had a duty of care to get us home but the customer service as awful.
“It has put me off going abroad - I think I will holiday somewhere in the UK next time!”
The airline has asked Kate to fill out a claim form detailing expenses for their extra stay and travel home and promised that its customer services team will make this a priority.
