Airline passengers have described their 'trip from hell' after a short haul flight to Norwich ended up taking more than 17 hours.

Families travelling aboard the Thomson Boeing 737-800 were due to land at Norwich Airport at 9.45pm on Tuesday, after just two-and-a-half hours in the air.

But due to poor weather over Norfolk, their flight from Palma de Mallorca was diverted into Manchester, which led to further problems.

Passengers claimed they were 'dumped' at Manchester Airport, with little direction on how to get home.

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Emma Gent, from Great Ellingham, who was travelling with her family, said once the plane landed, passengers were kept on-board for more than 30 minutes as they waited for it to refuel.

The 26-year-old said it then took a further four hours for the coaches to arrive to taken them back home.

'We then had to endure a five-hour trip on the coach, with sick children, to Norwich airport, she said.

'None of us knew what to do or where to go, and anyone we asked knew less than us. Our five hour short trip from our hotel turned into a 17 hour trip from hell.'

Other passengers complained that there were no Thomson representatives at the airport to explain what was happening.

Instead, they claimed they were helped by other staff members.

A 61-year-old, from Great Yarmouth, who was on his way back from a two-week holiday, said: 'The whole ordeal utterly ruined the holiday. No one wanted to take responsibility for the passengers on this flight. It was horrendous.'

'At the minimum, I think we all deserve a letter of apology from the person in charge, because were basically dumped at the airport.' He said he got home at 10.20am the next day. A spokesman for Thomson Airways said the company apologised for any inconvenience caused.

The spokesman said the flight was diverted due to 'adverse weather conditions'.

'As soon as our team on the ground were made aware of the situation we provided welfare assistance for customers and worked to source coach travel for passengers to Norwich, however due to the unexpected nature of this diversion we are aware that there was a delay to this, which we would like to again apologise for.'