Ryanair passengers stuck in delay 'chaos' at Stansted Airport

Passengers queued for hours at Ryanair customer Service desks after flights were cancelled and delayed

Hundreds of passengers were stranded at London Stansted Airport after Ryanair cancelled 28 flights ahead of storms on Tuesday.

The queues at the check-in and customer service desks, which continued on Wednesday morning, were described by disgruntled passengers as "a disaster" and "carnage".

Some who missed their flights said they were offered alternatives, while one passenger said Ryanair charged him £400 to fly two days later from a different airport.

Ryanair has apologised for the delays.

Tuesday's cancellations were "entirely beyond our control", Ryanair said.

Stansted Airport also tweeted about the cancellations, but many were sceptical about the storms, with one asking why other airlines were able to fly around them.

On Wednesday morning passengers took to Twitter to report on the "chaos" at the airport.

One referred to "hundreds of stressed-out passengers" and reported them boarding one flight, then having to get off again, which was "like aeroplane musical chairs".

Among those to have missed their flights was Michael Bellars and his family from Croydon, who were expecting to travel to Gran Canaria with Ryanair for their first holiday in 15 years.

He said they arrived at 04:10 for the 07:30 flight but delays at check-in and security meant the flight left without them.

He spent several hours retrieving his baggage and queuing "with hundreds of others" at customer services, where he was told for £400 he could get his family on another flight on Friday from Luton.

It was a "disaster", he told the BBC, adding he had lost two days of the holiday and had to retrieve his car from long-term parking and re-book for Luton.

Passenger Nick Brown described the situation as "carnage" and said: "Ryanair incompetence has meant we missed our flight at Stansted", leaving him to get a taxi to another airport for a different flight on Wednesday afternoon.

Julie McCall said she spent more than three hours in the customer services queue after her daughter missed her flight, and was then charged a further £100 for an afternoon flight. It was an "absolute joke" and "a shambles" she wrote on Twitter.

In a statement on Wednesday Ryanair apologised and said: "A knock-on effect of this weather disruption has caused some delays at check-in desks... this morning."

Stansted Airport said delays were due to a reduced number of Ryanair check-in desks as the operator dealt with passengers who had chosen to remain in the airport after their flights were cancelled, rather than rebooking online.