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FURIOUS plane passengers were forced to hand over 23,400 euros (around £20,000) in cash to get back to Birmingham last night after enduring a four-day delay.

Passengers say they were “held to ransom” for six hours on the tarmac in Vienna after the chartered Comtel Air flight from Amritsar in India stopped off to refuel in Austria.

More than 180 passengers, who should have arrived back on Saturday and paid around £500 for the flights, were told to disembark because the airline had “ran out of cash to fund the last leg of the trip.”

Passengers refused to get off the plane and were told that the flight would only return to Birmingham if 23,400 euros was handed over.

Austrian police were called to the aircraft during the six-hour stand-off, which only ended when passengers were escorted to cashpoint machines that ran out of money. The whip-round included euros and pounds that were borrowed as many of the elderly and young passengers did not have any money.

The passengers were told that they and their luggage would be removed from the plane if they did not pay up. More than 600 people on four different flights are thought to have been embroiled in the fiasco which started at the northern Indian city at the weekend. Another Comtel flight from Vienna was still “delayed indefinitely”.

Gurhej Kaur, a blind 80-year-old from Handsworth Wood, was one of the passengers who spent more than 15 hours on the plane while her medication was in the hold.

Her 34-year-old relative, Dalvinder Batra, from Oldbury, said: “It is absolutely disgusting.

‘‘There are still people stuck out there. We have been told that the company has gone bust.”

The first passenger off the plane was Tarlochan Singh. The 57-year-old from Wolverhampton had been in India for three weeks.

He said: “Nobody has told us anything. They wanted all the money in cash. Everyone was furious, that is why we had the sit-in. We spent more than six hours in Vienna.’’

Satbarg Nijjar was collecting his wife Gurdab Kaur Nijjar after a four-week holiday. The 60-year-old, from Coventry, said: “They have been told that they have not paid landing fees or taxes and the company is in financial trouble.’’

Chanhj Dehal, from Wolverhampton, was collecting his son, Ranbir.

Ranbir Dehal said: “We were escorted to the cash point to take money out.

“They said there was a deficit of nearly 24,000 euros and they gave us receipts. They lined up the buses and said we would be removed from the plane.”

Many of the passengers bought their tickets via a Smethwick-based travel agent. The agent did not respond to inquiries.

A spokeswoman for Birmingham Airport said it was seeking details from the Austrian-based airline about the delays. The Mail tried to speak to the airline last night, which has offices in Birmingham and London. Nobody was available to comment.

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