XL holiday couple stranded in Egypt

Stranded . . . Paul and Suzanne

A FED-UP couple stranded in Egypt after the XL collapse could face a £1,300 bill for their hotel rooms.

Paul Cunningham (23), from Diggle and his girlfriend Suzanne Davidson, from Fitton Hill, are on a two-week holiday to Sharm el Sheik on the Red Sea — the holiday Paul has dreamed of for years.

But it became a nightmare after the collapse of the UK’s third largest tour company on Friday. The couple are not due home until Saturday.

Paul, who works for Oldham water engineering company H2O, has told his mother he wants to be home now, and is hoping the Civil Aviation Authority will find them a flight.

Mum Julie said: “Someone has been to the hotel and told them their flights will be OK, but they don’t think their accommodation has been paid for and it could cost them £1,320 just for the hotel.

“I can’t understand why because they have paid more than £1,400 for the holiday.

“I’m going to the bank to put money into Paul’s account just to cover them.”

Paul and Suzanne (22), a law undergraduate at Manchester University, booked with the Co-op Travel Agency in Oldham, and were staying at the Oriental Hotel.

Paul has dreamed of visiting Egypt since he was a schoolboy.

Julie added: “On Friday, he was not going to let it spoil his holiday and went off to a water park. Now he is really fed-up and just wants to come home.”

A Chadderton family were the first passengers off an XL flight to Manchester from Florida on Friday which was re-routed to Paris in mid-air after the news of the company’s collapse broke at 3am.

But the father, mother and two children were too exhausted to talk as they made their way through the arrivals hall after being hoarded on to buses and a fresh plane in France.

Another family from Oldham took their own action to get out of Kos in Greece after hearing about the XL collapse.

Gerald Cheetham and his family had spent £1,000 on the holiday, but paid for their own flights home rather then be stranded.

By yesterday, the CAA had brought back 12,000 stranded passengers, of the 90,000 still abroad, on 52 relief flights.

But travel industry officials say it could be a week before enough aircraft are free to bring all of them home.