PASSENGERS flying into Bristol Airport yesterday endured a miserable evening, as thunderstorms forced several flights into diversions.

Aircraft hoping to land at the English airport were forced into a holding pattern in the skies yesterday evening (Monday, August 2), as a result of localised thunder and lightning strikes in the south west.

It came hours after the Met Office placed the region in a yellow weather warning for poor conditions, with thunder having been forecast.

As a result of the poor weather, it was not deemed safe for aircraft to land at Bristol Airport, and a number of flights diverted elsewhere – with some diversions taking passengers further away than others.

It is believed that two Bristol bound easyjet flights eventually came to land at Cardiff Airport – the service from Mallorca, and from Edinburgh.

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Flight tracking data supplied by FlightRadar24 shows that both aircraft diverted to the Welsh capital shortly after 6pm.

For passengers here, there was a brief delay, with the two aircraft taking to the skies to complete their journeys once weather conditions across the Bristol Channel improved.

While the disruption was only relatively minor for passengers aboard these two flights, the same could not be said for every passenger caught up in the storm.

A third flight – a Jet2 service from Madeira - was also held up on approach to Bristol.

However, not only did this aircraft divert to Birmingham Airport instead, it was unable to complete its journey until the following morning.

As a result, it is believed that stranded passengers had to endure a replacement coach service from Birmingham to Bristol yesterday evening.

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Passengers aboard a Ryanair flight from Dublin avoided a similar fate – as, despite diverting to London Luton, they eventually did land in Bristol at around 10.30pm, over four hours later than initially scheduled.

Luckily for airport bosses, the day of disruption did nothing to disrupt the launch of Bristol’s new Lufthansa service to Frankfurt.

The very first arrival of the new service touched down on English soil at around 12.15pm, several hours before the weather shifted for the worse.

While aircraft are equipped to cope with being struck by lightning, pilots are instructed to avoid thunderstorms wherever possible, particularly when it comes to landing and taking off.