"Petrified" TUI passengers begged to go home on a flight from hell after smelling smoke onboard.
Travellers said they had an 'abysmal' experience, with 30 hour delays as they headed for an all-inclusive holiday in Dalaman, Turkey from Manchester Airport.
Witnesses said fumes or smoke could be smelt, with passengers alerted an hour into the flight that there was a fault with the plane - and they would need to turn back to Manchester.
This left many onboard 'petrified' and the plane was greeted by fire engines after landing, the Manchester Evening News reports.
However, it would be another hour before people were let off the plane and after this there was another wait for coaches to take passengers to hotels across Manchester.
Some were notified to be ready for a coach to pick them up around 5am for their next flight, but it never arrived, and people had to to fork out for taxis back to the airport.
.Patience was beginning to 'wear thin', according to one, while families with young kids were struggling to cope.
Maria Cooper, who was travelling to Turkey, described the situation as a 'nightmare'.
"There's been no communication or anything at all," she said.
"We are just relying on the boards and text messages from TUI for everything. Everyone here has had only a few hours sleeps, babies and young kids here are really struggling.
"You honestly couldn't write it. We were an hour into the flight after all the delays and had to come back, the pilot and onboard staff were amazing but it was really scary still.
"People are trying to keep in high spirits and everyone is trying to help each other, especially the families with lots of big bags and young kids, but it has stressed everyone out so much.
"Kids have been crying a lot they're so upset.
"Everyone has lost confidence in the whole thing. The airport staff have been great in trying to help us but no one from TUI has been there at any point to tell us what's happening next.
"It's genuinely abysmal, it's not acceptable to be treating people like this for such a big company. It's shameful.
"This is some people's first holiday since the pandemic, and some kids first ever holiday, people are completely traumatised, it's like a film. We're all zombies at this point."
Molly Charfe's grandad paid more than £15,000 for their extended family of 13 to go on holiday to Dalaman.
But recent health issues the delays meant he had to go home to rest.
"We paid £11 each to be all together on the flight that did manage to take off but some of the children coming with us were made to sit on their own amongst the chaos," she said.
"We were glad to have finally set off but we could all smell fumes straight away. It felt like something had fallen off the plane when we were landing, it was wobbling loads."
She added: "There were no TUI staff to meet us at the airport again and other airport staff didn't know what was going on with us.
"When the morning flight was delayed our grandad had to go home as he's vulnerable and unwell at the moment, he paid £15,000 for a big family trip together but it's been ruined for him now, it's so sad.
"We've all been crying. You can't complain about what happened to the plane but the communication has been awful.
"They're not looking out for our welfare at all, it feels like they're delaying more and more so people will just leave.
"It's been so traumatic, especially having been on a plane which had to emergency land."
A TUI spokesperson said: "We’d like to apologise to customers travelling on TOM822 from Manchester Airport to Dalaman which was unfortunately delayed due to a technical issue.
"We aim to communicate with customers as quickly as we can if there are any changes to their holiday and offer transport, overnight accommodation, meals and refreshments as needed.
"We understand that last minute delays are incredibly disappointing and would like to reassure customers that we do everything we can to get them away on their holidays as planned.
"We’d like to apologise again for the inconvenience passengers travelling to Dalaman experienced and we thank them for their understanding.”
