A total of 23 teachers at a Bradford secondary school have been left stranded in different parts of the world due to the air travel crisis.

Tong High School has been forced to shut its doors to Year Seven pupils because of staff shortages caused by the impact of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud.

The partial closure of the school, which employs more than 230 members of staff, started today and was set to continue tomorrow.

Lyn O’Reilly, head teacher at Tong High, said: “We’ve have been hit really hard. We have 23 members of staff dotted all over the world – in Australia, the Middle East, the US and Thailand.

“We wanted to minimise disruption to start the term well and the staff who are here have shown a lot of goodwill to cover, but we have unfortunately had to ask families to keep Year Sevens at home.”

Other schools have also experienced problems, with nine teachers unable to return to Bingley Grammar School in time, five absent at Thornton Grammar School and four at Titus Salt School, in Baildon. Those schools are continuing to operate as normal.

Luke Weston, acting head teacher at Bingley Grammar School, said: “A lot of them are looking at alternative ways to get back. We have not felt it that badly and are operating as normal, but it will just cost us a bit more for the cover.”

Sue Colman, Bradford Council’s assistant director for Learning Services, said: “Closures will only occur if the school consider that they cannot operate all or part of the school safely. Schools are managing the staff absences effectively and there has only been minimal disruption to services.”

Stranded airline passengers started to be bussed back to Leeds-Bradford International Airport from across Europe.

Jet2, based at the Yeadon airport, commissioned 70 coaches to bring back customers stuck in Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic.

The company has also chartered flights from Lanzarote, Tenerife and Majorca to fly passengers to mainland Europe to allow them to complete their journey by coach.

The first to arrive back at Leeds Bradford by bus were 304 skiers from Chambery and Geneva this morning.

Ian Doubtfire, Jet2 managing director, said: “We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience being felt by our customers and are doing everything in our power to return them to the UK as quickly as possible. My colleagues and I are literally working 24 hours a day to achieve this.”

Barry Seal, chairman of Bradford District Care Trust, has been on holiday in Turkey and should have flown back this week.

He said: “I’m desperate to get back because I’ve got important meetings on Thursday. There’s obviously a risk, but I think they are being over-cautious. Planes could fly through certain parts of Europe, but they are just blocking off everything.”

Even the process of political campaigning has been disrupted. Neil Bentley, Liberal Democrat candidate for Batley & Spen, said: “My wife is stuck in Spain on what was meant to be a two-day business trip last Wednesday and so most of my time over the weekend has been spent on the phone or the internet trying to find her a route home, rather than any campaigning.”