Hundreds of holidaymakers booked on flights run by Seguro Holidays suffered further delays yesterday as technical problems continued to hamper departures from Scotland.
About 300 passengers who had been due to travel from Prestwick Airport to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria at 6pm on Saturday spent a second night in hotel accommodation on Sunday as Seguro tried to find a replacement plane.
The travellers expected to leave 37 hours late at 7am yesterday but they did not get away until 12.15pm - more than 42 hours after their original departure time.
That plane was supposed to bring back about 80 passengers from Las Palmas but they remained stranded until the delayed flight from Prestwick could be turned around.
The delay occurred after one of the company's planes was grounded for the second time in two weeks as engineers fixed a technical problem with the navigation system.
The company had told passengers the grounded plane, which it charters from Sky Wings, was being repaired and should have been ready to leave on Sunday evening.
The latest problems come just two weeks after more than 1000 Seguro passengers endured major disruption after the same plane had its licence temporarily suspended.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded in Scotland and abroad, while others had their holidays cancelled.
Other holidaymakers using Seguro flights travelling to and from Prestwick have also been enduring delays over the weekend and into yesterday.
A flight to Faro in Portugal due to leave at 10am finally took off five hours late. Two flights due to leave for Alicante in Spain at 9am and 4.40pm on Sunday were also delayed.
On Sunday, Seguro said that flights to Faro and Palma yesterday would run as usual and that service should return to normal later in the week.
Nobody at the Cheshire-based travel company, which in November 2005 was voted the best short-haul specialist tour operator by the Scottish Passenger Agents' Association, was available to discuss the latest problems. Its website made no mention of the current problems, while apologising for those of two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers waiting for a flight out of Glasgow to Vancouver, Canada, delayed due to a midair safety alert, finally left Scotland at 6.40am yesterday - nearly 15 hours late.
About 200 Glasgow-bound passengers were on a Zoom Airlines Boeing 767 from Ottawa which turned back due to a possible problem with the hydraulic system.
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