in a mad scrummage in order to get their hands on their luggage.

Two luggage conveyor belts at the arrivals lounge have been removed and replaced by a temporary one while redevelopment work at the airport is carried out.

And that meant that passengers arriving on Sunday night were herded into a bottleneck and trampled on as they fought to collect their suitcases from the conveyor belt.

One furious traveller told The Royal Gazette : "It was just complete chaos.

Having completed a long flight and filled out all those forms I was then faced with a massive crowd around just one section of the conveyor belt.

"People were pushing and being pushed to try and get through to their bags.

As I walked in I could see my suitcases going around but I just couldn't get to them. They went around another four times before I was able to push my way through and get hold of them.

"Everybody was complaining about it, although I didn't make an official complaint. I can understand that the lounge has to be renovated but there should be a contingency plan for this kind of thing. You could only get to one small section of the conveyor belt and so there was a mass of bodies about five deep in front of it.'' Terminals manager Michael Osborn defended the decision to take out the conveyor belts and explained that everything was being done to allow travellers to collect their luggage quickly.

"I understand there was a problem on Sunday night and there was a bottleneck,'' he said.

"That was because part of the arrivals lounge had to be fenced off while work was going on.

"I would apologise for any inconvenience caused to passengers.''