Mr Forsyth said that he finally pulled out his iPhone and Googled the airline - to discover that the carrier's entire fleet had been grounded because of unpaid fees.

"With a slight fear of being tackled by police I hopped on the highest counter I could see and shouted out the news," he said.

"I asked for their attention and belted it out in my best theatrical voice. I told them they were all famous, they were being reported on the news. We came out and the media was waiting for us, so they knew. Everybody but us knew."

In its statement to customers, Zoom advised them to check with their credit card companies to arrange refunds and to speak to other airlines to arrange alternative flights. It said that both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic would offer "special fares" to Zoom customers.

But Helen Steel, who spent all day yesterday at Glasgow airport waiting for a flight to Canada which never took off, said that BA staff appeared to be unaware of any "special fares" and were demanding £2,500 per passenger.

BA said that it was offering a special one-way fare of half the usual return price for customers who have been stranded. The fare is available to those customers midway through their travel plans who were booked to travel from yesterday either to the UK or all North American gateways and Bermuda.

BA said it would also give a discount from its current World Offer fares to those passengers booked on Zoom but yet to travel.

Canadian Affair, the UK’s largest tour operator to Canada, said today that it was operating additional flights to and from Canada to help Zoom passengers.

The company has already managed to rebook more than 3,000 passengers and will run an additional flight next Monday from Toronto to London and from London to Toronto on Tuesday.

Zoom said that an estimated 40,000 passengers had made bookings with the airline over the next year, most of who had been due to fly in 2009.

Airlines excluded from failure insurance

Olympic Airlines (Greece)

Alitalia (Italy)

AiRUnion and Malev (Russia and Hungary)

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