I may be wrong, but flights from Manchester go to
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kittilä_Airport
They left late at night - it wouldn’t be a long flight to get there and there is only a few hrs of daylight sunrise 10:30am sunset 1.34pm. Giving the temperatures not sure if flights would arrive that late and there is not that many late flights from Manchester.
Once you get past 8pm it’s mainly internal flights (but not from T1) from Manchester, apart from one to Doha, Oman or Islamabad. Dubai seems the most likely option.
I think this is definitely a sponsored holiday!! No doubt about.
The way they have been acting they can’t afford much else especially with school fees etc. All the talk of money in Australia and the caravan holidays since is a stark difference to the NY, Florida, Tui SENSATORI holidays from the beginning of the year.
They didn’t want to say anything before incase they are turned away by visit.dubai, or any carry on at the airport would be a lot more serious that Oz refusing entry.
As for Lapland they maybe paid a deposit but with everything else that happened they didn’t bother/couldn’t afford to pay the rest normally full payment is needed around 8 weeks before going.