BIRTHDAY holidaymaker Helen Warburton today told how her French ski trip ended in a nightmare of delays when her group of 22 friends were heading for home.

The holiday party, who went to the resort of Meribel, claim they had to load and unload their own luggage after checking out of their chalets and heading for Chambrey airport.

Helen, of Field House Farm, Slaidburn, had aimed to celebrate her 30th birthday in style but the £19,000 trip ended with a day-long delay and an unscheduled overnight stop in a hotel.

Armed police were later called to the airport when tempers flared, but the East Lancashire group had already decided to leave and make their own way home.

The problems started when Crystal Holidays, with whom the party had booked, announced to the 200 passengers waiting at Chambrey airport that their Sabre Airline jet was going to be delayed because of bad weather.

Hours later they were informed they were being transferred to Lyon airport by bus.

Helen, a sales executive with a Leeds medical company, said: "When we got to Lyon, we waited for hours with no information about flight times and were eventually told we would have to stay overnight in a hotel."

She said the hotel only had food for around 70 people and some went hungry.

Helen added: "The following morning we were told to go to Lyon airport for noon though we may not fly until 10pm with no guarantee we would go then.

"There was a risk that we would have another overnight stay to face. Everyone was running out of money so I decided to make a few calls to railway stations and found a train to Geneva.

"From there we all could fly with EasyJet to Liverpool. We had to pay an additional £100 each. We should have been home at 6pm on Saturday, instead it was 10.30pm on Sunday. It was a birthday party I won't ever forget."

Derek Stuttard, manager of Althams Travel Agents, in Clitheroe, who had booked the party's holiday said the whole thing was a "shambles".

He said: "We have booked with Crystal Holidays, which is part of Thomsons, for years and they have always been excellent."

Mary Stuart, a spokeswoman for Crystal Holidays said: "Extremely bad weather conditions in Chambrey meant Crystal was not prepared to risk the safety of passengers by landing planes and taking off from the airport.

"The only alternative we had was to go to another airport, in this case Lyon, and charter another plane at a cost to the company of around £20,000.

"We also made sure they had a hotel to stay overnight in, rather than the airport floor, and also food.

"I am not aware of people being unable to get something to eat and it would be unusual for a hotel to run out of food.

She added that the company had written a letter to its passengers waiting at Lyon airport to keep them informed of the progress and apologising.

"We told them we were doing our best to get them on a charter plane at 10pm, though even then could not give a 100 per cent guarantee it would not be delayed.

"As it turned out, we eventually managed to secure an earlier plane."