TAP Portugal passengers stranded for 24 hours with no explanations

They were due to fly to the Spanish capital on Sunday at 20.15, but were notified of a series of delays until, finally, the flight was cancelled at 23.00.

The 100 or so travellers say they spent 'five hours queueing up' until 04.00 on Monday to file compensation claims so they could be given overnight accommodation.

After being taken to a hotel by coach, they were 'not even given an evening meal', they complained.

Many passengers had to be at work on Monday morning, and have had to phone their companies and take an impromptu day's holiday.

But they still have no idea when they are likely to fly.

As at Monday night, travellers were complaining they still had no information from TAP Portugal.

They were told 24 hours after the cancellation that it was due to 'adverse weather conditions', but say they had seen 'numerous flights' taking off from Oporto's Francisco Sá Carneiro airport for Madrid.

And no mention has been made of putting them on trains or in coaches to return to Madrid overland.

A Ryanair flight from Oporto to Madrid was cancelled due to bad weather, but the passengers were taken to their destination by coach – something that has not been offered to TAP customers.

Numerous tweets tagging @tapairportugal complaining of the situation have been posted, and TAP's response on Twitter has been a standard, “We apologise for the inconvenience and we regret that your experience with TAP has not entirely met your expectations.”

One Twitter user says passengers are 'still in their hotel' and asks TAP whether they have 'thought of any solutions'.

The response was to call their customer service helpline – which most passengers have already done and said they were 'fobbed off'.

Another user asked why TAP had not brought in stand-by crew 'because that's the whole point of having them', but was again brushed off with 'apologies for the inconvenience' and told to call customer service.