Ben Denton and his children were hoping to fly back to Manchester Airport after a skiing holiday in the Alps, when they were forced to spend 13 hours at Chambery Airport, France, on Saturday.

Ben, from Whitford, Clwyd, says seven hours were spent outside the tiny airport building, as temperatures dropped to -2C.

Mr Denton shared shocking photographs of his children lying on a makeshift bed, made from ski equipment bags, while being covered by a £60 fur blanket he was forced to buy.

Hours later, the family were finally told to go to a sports hall where the Red Cross provided camp beds, blankets and food for hundreds of stranded passengers.

On Saturday, Ben complained to Crystal Ski Holidays, who are owned by TUI, on Facebook writing: ‘So been at Chambery Airport for 13 hours, our fight cancelled.

‘Standing outside for seven hours.’

Referring to one of his children, he added: ‘Arabella bloody freezing!

‘Nobody has a clue what’s going on, where we are staying. Staff look like rabbits in headlights and half of them have disappeared.’

The family were later told that they would be going to emergency accommodation in a gym.

Ben wrote: ‘So now we are all going to a gym emergency accommodation why the f*** didn’t they tell me at 1:00pm so we could of got a taxi ourselves and go to a decent hotel.’

The family were later transferred to a conference centre in Grenoble where Mr Denton filmed the driver using his phone to text whilst driving.

They arrived back home yesterday when Ben updated his post, writing: ‘It was a terrible experience and they are saying it was bad due to the fog but planes were landing all day.’

Dozens of other stranded customers also took to Facebook to complain about the situation.

On Saturday evening Howard Perks wrote: ‘We have now been here for 16 hours.

‘The terminal is freezing, many are outside where it’s seriously cold, now women are in tears trying to comfort young children.

‘There’s been no hot food for hours, we are told there will be hotel rooms made available but then some are told they will be taken to camp in a sports hall.’

A TUI UK spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that a number of customers were impacted following adverse and changeable weather conditions in Chambery on Saturday 4th January.

‘The safety of our customers and crew is always our highest priority and our teams worked hard to get everyone to their destination as quickly as possible.

‘Customers were provided with food and drinks and were supported by our Crystal ski reps.

‘We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and would like to thank our customers for their co-operation and patience.’