Qantas bungle: School trip stuck at Melbourne Airport for 18 hours

An airline bungle has left a group of school children stranded at Melbourne Airport for 18 hours.

A group of 22 students in the early years of secondary school left for the airport at 5.30am on Monday, ready to board a flight to Tasmania for a four-day hiking trip.

When they arrived at the airport, their Qantas flight was delayed then cancelled altogether and they were told to wait for the 7.30pm flight.

But that wasn’t the end of the stuff-up.

“They left these poor children sitting in the terminal with nothing until 7.30 at night, then to be told the flight was delayed once again,” Shannon Aiello, the mother of a 13-year-old caught up in the bungle, told Tony Jones.

“They got on the plane at 8.30pm, they then get out on the tarmac and get told the plane has malfunctioned. They sat on the tarmac for two hours.

“Then they had to wait an hour and a half for their bags.

“They literally spent 18 hours at the airport.”

Press PLAY below to hear the mother of one of the students telling Tony Jones about the massive bungle