Falkirk families hope holiday nightmare will soon be over

People have been left to sleep on the floor in the airport after flight delays

Heather and Stuart Tweedie left home on Monday looking forward to their summer break in Madeira.

They were accompanied by Heather’s parents Ian and Margaret Smith.

But their flight from Edinburgh to Funchal which was due to take off at 3.30pm was cancelled.

They then flew with Spanish low-cost airline Vueling on an Edinburgh-Barcelona-Funchal flight.

But it was unable to land in Madeira because of high winds and was diverted to Tenerife.

The 200 passengers on board were taken to a hotel for the evening but picked up at 4.30am on Tuesday and driven to Tenerife South airport – only to be told later that their flight due to leave at noon was cancelled.

They were taken back to a hotel and at 12.25am today were told in a tweet they would finally be flying to Funchal at 4pm today.

The airline added: “Sorry for any inconvenience.”

Heather said: “I’ve not slept since Sunday night. We been given a room above the bar and still can’t sleep because of an Abba tribute act!

“Luckily my friend, a former PE teacher in Falkirk, is Spanish and has been translating for us from Madrid or we wouldn’t know what was going on.”

She added that there was one other family from the Falkirk area caught up in the delays.