The chaos affecting Europe as flights continue to be grounded has been described by three men who travelled 40 hours from Malta to Maidstone.

The ban on flights after Iceland Volcano eruption is expected to remain in place until 1am on Tuesday.

Edwin Boorman, John Taylor and Ray Ingram were in Malta when they heard Gatwick was closed on Friday.

After spending several hours at an Air Malta check-in desk, they found a tourist office selling tickets for any airline which had a seat.

They flew to Zurich, where 11 queues were stretching back from the main train station.

Mr Boorman, president of KM Group, called his PA Penny Dyson, who was able to book a channel crossing for Saturday, from Caen to Portsmouth.

The group then had to find a way across Europe and settled on going to Lyon via Geneva, where they encountered an unofficial dispute between Swiss and French railway workers.

Passengers were ordered into a special part of Geneva railway station, where eventually a French bus driver picked up passengers to take them onward to Lyon by bus.

Once there, it was a high-speed TGV journey from Paris, on a packed-out train, a train from Paris to Caen and the ferry crossing, which went smoothly.

At Portsmouth they became part of a crowd of thousands (pictured above) facing more huge queues to get through immigration, with officials insisting each passport be put through the computer. By now it was 10pm on Saturday.

Border officials called in police in Portsmouth to help with the queues and eventually allowed each passenger to walk through showing their passport.

Sixty taxis were brought to the terminal and extra trains to London were arranged.