More than 250 flights to and from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have been cancelled because planes cannot be refuelled after the fuel system collapsed.
Thousands of passengers are facing delays and cancelled flights on Wednesday at Europe’s third biggest aviation hub.
The airport has said the firm responsible, Aircraft Fuel Supply, was trying to fix the problem but was “unclear” how long that would take, adding that it will “definitely last into the evening”.
Field beds were being set up at the airport as a precaution in case passengers were forced to wait overnight for their flights, an airport spokeswoman said.
It was not clear how many passengers were affected by the delays and cancellations, but the spokeswoman said the number ran into the thousands.
Dozens of flights to and from the UK have been cancelled, including at least 40 KLM airline departures to and from Heathrow, London City, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
One passenger, Dan Krikorian, pleaded via Twitter from his stationary plane: “Updates? Going to be 3 hours sitting on a plane. #trappedatschiphol.”
Another Twitter user, Melanie Beiler said: “We’re not having much fun at the airport though. They keep moving around planes to different gates, a apart from that, we get barely any information.”
The airport said a company that supplies fuel to planes at the airport has "a fault in their system. That means that planes cannot be refuelled right now, which is causing delays.".
In a statement the airport said it was working with the company, Aircraft Fuel Supply, to try to resolve the problem.
"It is still unclear how long this will take, but we expect it to last long into the evening. We regret any inconvenience for travellers and airlines," it said.
Only one-third of the usual number of flights was arriving at Schiphol on Wednesday night, the airport spokeswoman added. Even fewer were leaving.
"If they have enough fuel they can go," she said. "There are planes departing, but it is at a minimum level."
Dutch airline KLM said it was possible flights would be cancelled Thursday as well due to an "phased restart" of operations at the airport.
The fuel problem came during the busy summer vacation period in the Netherlands and on a day that saw a heat wave set a record high temperature. The Dutch weather service Weerplaza said the southern city of Eindhoven reported a temperature of 39.3 degrees C, the hottest day in the country in 75 years.
Airport spokesman Hans van Kastel told Dutch broadcaster NOS that the fuel issue was not believed to be linked to the hot weather.
