A TEIGNMOUTH family spent more than ten hours queuing for a flight at snowbound Heathrow airport.

Eventually they abandoned a weekend business and pleasure trip to Italy, and went on a sightseeing tour of London instead because the road home was blocked.

Jackie Palmer and her son and daughter-in-law, Roger and Simone – who run the Eastcliff Cafe on the seafront – drove to the airport on Thursday in good time for a Friday flight to Bologna.

But the weather deteriorated and the flight was cancelled, so they joined a queue for the Saturday departure.

They then stood in another queue to be allocated a hotel for the night.

When that was also called off in the morning, they could not face queuing for the Sunday flight, so decided to book their own hotel.

They spent the weekend shopping, sightseeing and taking in a show in the capital.

'It was utter chaos at the airport, and people were sleeping all over the place. There was no information about what was going on,' said Mr Palmer, 32.

'We were going to an ice-cream trade show in Rimini, but we cut our losses and toured around London instead.

'At least we were given full refunds for the flights, but it was all a bit of a nightmare that we would not want to go through again.'

Heavy snow fell in the Teignmouth area on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

It quickly cleared in the town centre area, but remained on the ground above New Road, making driving tricky on the hills.