Updated at 3.20pm

Passengers on an Air Malta flight from Paris saw their holiday turn into a nightmare on Sunday night after their flight failed to leave Orly airport. 

The flight was meant to leave at 6.10pm on Sunday but had to be rescheduled to leave at noon on Monday, arriving in Malta at 2.35pm. However, further delays meant that it only actually arrived at 3.15pm

Several complained of frustration at not being told what was happening and when they would depart.

At 6.45pm passengers, who had already checked in, were told about a delay of three hours and forty minutes. But it was subsequently delayed once more. No explanations were given, a passenger said in a message to a relative in Malta.

Passengers were then taken to a hotel where there was confusion while rooms were allocated at 3.30am.

The passengers were taken back to the airport and asked to check in once more at 8.30 on Monday morning 

"This has been a nightmare," the passenger said. She explained that many passengers had children. Some did not have coats since everything was in their luggage on the aircraft, but they had to walk some 15 minutes in a cold night to reach a coach during the night.  

An Air Malta spokesman said the aircraft suffered a delay in arrival and its departure was thus delayed beyond the night-time closure of the airport and no dispensation was given for it to leave. The departure was subsequently further delayed because of crew rest requirements. He said the flight would depart at 1200. 

The aircraft involved was not the one on short lease which was at the centre of a number of delays last week. That aircraft has been replaced.

On Saturday, an Air Malta flight to Gatwick was delayed by 14 hours “for operational reasons”.

The Paris flight delay on Sunday-Monday is having a knock-on effect on other services, with flights to London, Rome and Munich delayed by 45 minutes, 35 minutes and two hours respectively. The Vienna flight was also reported by a passenger to have been delayed.