‘Chaos’ strikes airport in popular holiday hotspot after dozens of flights cancelled leaving Brit tourists stranded

CHAOS has struck a popular holiday hotspot airport after dozens of flights were cancelled - leaving Brits stranded, reports say.

Passengers at Madeira Airport had to sleep on the floor or stand in endless queues waiting for their delayed or cancelled flights to be rescheduled.

The weather took its toll with strong winds at the airport yesterday leading to over 23 cancellations.

Many passengers were waiting for their flights to be rescheduled, with some even needing to stay overnight at their terminal in case there were any flights available to take them home.

One user took to X, formerly Twitter, to express their frustration on the waiting around.

They said: "My turn to experience a flight cancellation and the ensuing chaos, stranded in Madeira after heavy winds."

Images on social media show passengers standing in huge queues, presumably waiting for any flight updates.

Others show travellers laying on the airport's ground sleeping.

A Jet2 plane from London managed to land but was delayed after having to wait for the opportunity to approach the runway.

On top of this, another flight from Manchester had to wait around for the same reason.

According to data from IPMA, the strong gust recorded since midnight was a shocking 75 km/h, at 4am, reports.

This morning there were reports that wind was affecting traffic at the airport, causing some delays and one cancellation.

It is hoped all flights will still manage to land but delays are expected due to a backlog from yesterday's disastrous cancellations.

The airport has been approached for comment.

It comes after easyJet has been forced to cancel more than 232 flights due to a strike happening in Portugal later this week.

More than a quarter of the airline's flights to and from Portugal have been affected between August 15 to 17.

At the end of July, when the strike action was first announced, 160 flights were originally thought to be impacted by the strike action.

According to Portuguese newspaper Expresso, a total of 1,138 EasyJet flights were expected to operate over this three-day period.

However, this has since risen to 232 flights being cancelled across the next three days.

This affects around 27 flights to and from the UK.

The strike, called by SNPVAC starts at 12:01am on August 15 and ends at 12pm on August 17.

These issues included lack of staff and an increase in the number of working hours.

The Sun has approached Madeira Airport and Jet2 for comment.