Newquay passengers will pay the surcharge at new ticket machines

Plans to collect an extra �5 departure fee should have started on Saturday, but the machines to collect the fee were not working.

The county council's Transportation Department is looking into what went wrong and hopes to be able to levy the charge by the end of the week.

The surcharge is being imposed to help reduce a deficit of about �1m a year.

Collection chaos

The �5 fee, the first to be introduced at a UK airport, is supposed to be paid using machines installed in the check-in area.

Council head of transportation Colin Jarvis said the airport could not start charging the �5 until it got the machines right.

He said: "We're not collecting the levy because if we tried to with the machines not working effectively that would be even more chaotic.

"We hope that by the end of the week the machines will be working fully and the charge will be in place."

Newquay Airport, which operates from RAF St Mawgan, receives essential services from the RAF such as air traffic control and fire and rescue.