Edinburgh holiday makers have been stranded in the Canary Islands today after airports were forced to close due to a Saharan sandstorm covering the region in heavy dust.
Passengers from all over the UK due home over the weekend have been stranded in the Canary Islands, which are Spanish territories off Africa's West Coast, due to the sandstorm which blew over from the Sahara Dessert.
A Jet2 flight was meant to depart from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Airport for Edinburgh Airport at 1550 today was cancelled this morning but as part of protocol tourists set to travel on the flight were informed they still needed to travel to the airport.
Jim Wilson from Haddington in East Lothian told Edinburgh Live : "We've been waiting for 3 hours with no seats as the airport is full of thousands of people, some of whom have been here for days.
"People on EasyJet flights to Ireland have been told that there are no available seats until the 5th of March.
"All of the airlines are trying to source hotels for everyone but as you can see there seems to be an endless amount of people."
According to Chronicle Live, passengers who were meant to board a flight to Newcastle have been stranded in the Gran Canaria airport since Sunday (23 February) morning.
Customer service staff at the airports told the PA news agency that while the airports had remained open for passengers, there were no flights to board.
Describing the scene at the airport Jim continued: "It's the end of the school holiday so there's lots of distressed kids, tired Mums and Dads who may be down to their last few euros.
"People are trying to do their best here and handing out bottles of water.
"The queue is out on to the concourse and even though there are no flights, there are still more and more passengers being bussed into the airport."
"We've just been booked into a hotel for the next two days so who knows when we'll be coming home."
