Stranded Air Australia passengers arrive in Sydney on Qantas flight

At the airport tonight, some said they had worried about their young children left at home. Others feared a medical emergency if they ran out of medicine. All who spoke to AAP agreed they were lucky to have touched down on Australian soil. About 4000 Australia-bound passengers were stranded throughout Asia and the Pacific after Air Australia was placed into voluntary administration yesterday. John Moran is insulin dependent and said if he had not got back to Australia quickly he could have been hospitalised. "I only had about two shots (of insulin) left. Luckily we got on the Qantas flight." Mr Moran and his wife, Gale, spent nine hours on the phone and forked out $1,000 to get home to Melbourne. "Lucky we had the Visa card," Ms Moran said. Another holiday maker who managed to get onto the Qantas flight, Sandra Russell, was in a hurry to get back to Brisbane to see her two children, aged 4 and 6, who were left at home with friends. "There were a few tears last night on the phone when we weren't coming home," she said. "They're really little so they were missing us." Ms Russell and her friend Paula Morris were holidaying in Honolulu with 16 other people, eight of whom were children. "We were at the airport all day yesterday, from 6.30am until nine last night," she said. Ms Russell said stranded passengers were receiving assistance at Honolulu Airport. "The Australian consulate were there and they were absolutely fantastic," she said. Ms Morris said Qantas had matched the price of their Air Australia flights but their insurance company was not going to cover the extra cost. "You get travel insurance to protect you and now we're all having to have fork out this extra money. At the end of a holiday it's really hard," Ms Morris said. "It's like lighting a match to some money and seeing it go up in smoke," Ms Russell said. "At least we got our holiday."

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