FLIGHTS at a busy airport in Spain have been thrown into chaos after a rare summer fog engulfed the runway.

Passengers were left fuming after flights were delayed up to nine hours at Palma Airport in the height of holiday season.

Flights delayed at Palma Airport due to rare summer fog Credit: MDB Digital

Palma de Mallorca is one of Spain’s busiest airports Credit: Getty

Airport operator Aena said “significant delays” began in the early hours of Thursday morning as the dense fog hampered flight operations.

Several services, including arriving and departing flights, had to be rescheduled.

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Brit passengers were left outraged, with some forced to wait more than nine hours without an update.

One X user raged: “I have been waiting in Palma Airport since 8am for flight to Shannon, it’s now 15.20 and we have been given zero information all day, is there any way we can get an update???

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“And a truthful one if possible.”

Another user pleaded for an update after her flight was rescheduled from 8am to 5.16pm.

“Passengers in the airport for 9 hours with very little communication or support”, she said in a post on X.

The unusual weather is known as summer fog and can develop along the Balearic coast when high humidity mixes with overnight winds.

It can severely reduce visibility during the early hours, throwing airports and transport infrastructure into chaos.

The disruption came as Mallorca braces for scorching temperatures reaching 41C inland. 

A huge fire rages at a fuel storage near Palma airport Credit: X

Planes are still taking off at the Majorca airport, with one terrifying video showing the huge scale of the blaze from the air Credit: x

It comes after flights were nearly derailed at Palma Airport on Monday when flames consumed the surrounding area.

A blaze broke out in Mercapalma at around 3pm sending a towering plume of smoke across the Bay of Palma.

Passengers were left in shock when authorities issued emergency fire prevention protocols.

Despite the alert flights continued to depart and land at the airport as usual.

Palma Airport is the third-largest in Spain, with close to 34million passengers passing through every year.

An amber heat warning was in force in the south of the island amid a heatwave that has seen wild fires spread across Spain.

Shocking footage from a hotel in Cadiz, on the southern coast, showed around 200 holidaymakers being rushed from their hotels and villas as pillars of smoke emerged from behind a swimming pool.

Helicopters, water trucks, heavy machinery and medics were deployed to try and contain the blaze, which started at El Alamillo in the Sierra de Grazalema mountain area.

Yellow and orange weather warnings are also in place across the Canary Islands, where sweltering temperatures are expected to exceed 40C.

Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia are the other regions tipped to be worst-affected.