A STONYHURST College pupil and his two friends endured a 55-hour journey to the Middle East - when it should have only taken eight hours.

Francis Ryan, 16, a student at the college, and his two friends David McGrath, also 16, and 15-year-old Jeremy Aston, were due to catch the KLM flight from Manchester airport to Dubai with just one stop in Amsterdam.

On their arrival they were to be met by their parents, who work in the United Arab Emirates.

Bad weather and two unscheduled stops delayed the plane by two hours.

By the time the boys got to Amsterdam they had missed their connecting flight to Dubai by less than half an hour.

Subsequent flights were full and a delay of 16 hours was endured, along with a night spent on the airport floor.

When they eventually got under way, a further delay meant another connection was missed.

At one point the boys were told by KLM staff in Cyprus that they could fly to Beirut the following day or wait another three days for a direct flight from Cyprus.

After managing to get a flight via Athens and enduring another overnight wait, this time in a hotel, the boys finally got to Dubai via Athens and Kuwait to meet their parents almost two days late.

A spokesman for KLM said the Dutch airline company was "disappointed" to hear about the unfortunate events which the boys experienced while flying with them.

He said: "Whilst KLM regrets any inconvenience caused to Messrs Aston, McGrath and Ryan, the events surrounding this incident were not in the airline's control. KLM did all it could to facilitate their journey to Dubai given the unforeseen circumstances."