Stranded Shrewsbury family forced to extend island holiday after flights chaos

David and Laura Burrows, who are on their first holiday abroad with their nine month old son, Jacob, were caught up in bad weather on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

They got so frustrated at being unable to get on a plane to get home to Shrewsbury, they eventually decided to extend their holiday.

Hundreds of holidaymakers were stranded at Funchal airport last week because of the unusual weather.

Mr Burrows said they arrived at the airport in plenty of time for their flight home from Madeira on Monday.

"We then begin to notice flights being delayed for an hour or more.

"A television crew turned up to film the stranded passengers - this wasn't just one or two delays.Then our Jet2 flight was delayed and finally, after several hours, we were told that the flight was cancelled," he said.

The family were bussed to a hotel in the mountains to stay the night.

"There was no travel cot for Jacob and nowhere for us to warm his bottle or keep his medication cool," Mr Burrows said.

The following day they returned to the airport with high winds still plaguing the island.

Mr Burrows said: "We were at the gate and the food outlets ran out of food. We went to find something to eat in the main departure area and the tannoy announced that we should go to the gate.

"We were so pleased and raced back to the gate - only to find they were called us to tell us that our flight was again cancelled and we had to pick out luggage up ourselves from outside.

"We were told that they only way we could get back to the UK was to take a ferry to the mainland, a journey involving a long bus trip, three-hour ferry and then a bus again to their mainland airport."

"With Jacob so young, we couldn't face it and decided to extend the holiday. "

Mr Burrows said Jet2 agreed to allow them to re-book to return home this week.

"It has meant taking more annual leave. Maybe we should go back to Anglesey next time," Mr Burrows added.