Couple back from horror holiday

PAUL CUNNINGHAM and Suzanne Davison

A COUPLE stranded in Egypt after the collapse of travel company XL flew back to Manchester yesterday and said they were glad to put an end to their nightmare.

Suzanne Davison (22), and her boyfriend Paul Cunningham (23), were in Sharm el Sheik, but a catalogue of disasters ruined the experience, and made them glad to get home.

Paul, who lives in Diggle, recalled how their holiday peace was shattered when a fellow-tourist who had flown out on the same aircraft told them the news that XL — the UK’s third largest tour company — had gone bust.

“We didn’t know anything about it, and I thought he was winding us up,” said Paul. “But it soon turned into a nightmare. We didn’t know what was happening with the flight — our holiday rep was nowhere to be seen — then someone came posing as a representative of the Civil Aviation Authority and told us we had to pay for the hotel.”

The couple faced having to find more than £1,300 but Suzanne’s father, Ian, stepped in to find out what was happening.

Paul said: “A few people who were staying in the hotel did pay, but luckily we found out it was a con before we handed anything over.

“Suzanne’s dad rang to tell us he had been in touch with the Civil Aviation Authority and our hotel was paid for.”

On top of that, Paul’s credit ran out on his mobile telephone, and he had to spend £100 to cover the cost of calls to sort out the mess.

His bank cards failed, and the NatWest revealed it had stopped them because it believed someone was using them fraudulently.

Despite him assuring his bank through yet more expensive telephone calls that it was him using them, they still failed to work.

“We just managed to scrape by on the money we had with us,” said Paul.

And to top it all, when they were eventually told they were to fly home with a Spanish airline, they had to spend 12 hours at the airport.

The weary pair, who should have been back on Saturday, finally touched down at Manchester Airport yesterday lunchtime.

Paul, who was due back at college today on day-release from Oldham water engineering company H2O, said: “The holiday was ruined.”

He and Suzanne, a Manchester University law undergraduate from Fitton Hill, booked their break with Co-op Travel in Oldham and were staying at the Oriental Hotel.

The British Airline Pilots’ Association has demanded an inquiry into why thousands of passengers were left stranded abroad while 21 planes from XL flew back to Britain with a total of 3,570 empty seats.