More than 180 British travellers had to cough up a total of £20,000 after an Austrian airline refused to fly them home until they handed over the cash.

The passengers said they were "held to ransom" for six hours on the tarmac in Vienna, where a flight with Austrian airline Comtel Air from Amritsar, India, had stopped to refuel.

They should have returned on Saturday, but after being left stranded for several days they finally got back to Birmingham on Tuesday night.

Dalvinder Batra, of Oldbury, West Midlands, told the Birmingham Mail: "It is absolutely disgusting. There are still people stuck out there."

Ranbir Dehal, from Wolverhampton, said: "We were escorted to the cash point to take money out. They said there was a deficit of nearly €24,000 and they gave us receipts."

Reena Rindi, who was on board with her two-year-old daughter, told Channel 4 News: "We wanted to go home. We'd been stranded for about three to four days. Who was going to take us home?"

She said passengers agreed to pay so they could fly to Birmingham and added: "We all got together, took our money out of purses – £130. The children under two went free.

"If we didn't have the money they were making us go one by one outside in Vienna to get the cash out."

Bhunpinder Kandra, Comtel's director of passenger services, told Channel 4 the airline would refund all the passengers' money but admitted it could take months for them to receive payment.

He said: "The cash is still with the pilots. Both pilots are now in London."

Kandra later pledged to investigate the incident, saying: "It shouldn't have happened." He denied Comtel Air was going bust, adding: "There is no chance of that."

A Foreign Office spokesman advised those affected is to contact their tour operator, travel agent or the airline.A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: "It is an Austrian airline, so we have no direct jurisdiction over it.

"We are looking to see if people who bought their holiday in Britain bought it through an ATOL-licensed tour operator. If they did, that tour operator needs to step in to arrange new flights for them.

"If that makes the tour operator go bust, then we would step in to bring Atol-protected people home."