Thousands of passengers have been left stranded at Spanish airports after Spanair went bust yesterday, cancelling all of its flights at short notice.

"Faced with the lack of financial visibility for the coming months, the company has decided to cease its operations as a measure of caution and safety," Spanair said in a statement on Friday evening.

The airline's last scheduled flight landed on Friday night, leaving rivals such as Iberia, Vueling and Easyjet to share out the passengers left stranded.

Spanish media estimate that some 22,000 passengers will be affected over the weekend but Spanair have not confirmed this figure.

On Saturday morning, airports authority AENA said that special lounges had been allocated for Spanair customers at Madrid's Barajas and Barcelona's El Prat airports.

"Passengers are turning up at these areas and the other companies are putting them on flights," an AENA spokeswoman said.

55 Spanair flights were cancelled at Madrid and 54 at Barcelona on Saturday alone, with a handful of flights cancelled at Valencia's Manises airport and El Altet airport in Alicante.

The company said in its statement Friday:  "The Spanair management regrets this and apologises to all those people who are affected by this situation."

Spanair, founded in 1986, had hoped to secure a multi-million euro investment deal with Qatar Airways, but it fell through.

The Catalan regional govenrment, which has a substantial share in the company, said it was unable to increase its stake due to crisis budget cuts and EU limits.