Furious passengers were left sweating when the air conditioner broke onboard an EVA Air flight in Taiwan.

The Airbus A330 was due to depart from Taoyuan City when the system malfunctioned at 3 pm local time on Monday.

Footage shows the travellers on Flight BR716 fanning themselves as they were stranded for more than an hour in the hot plane cabin.

One person showed his arm dripping with sweat. Flight attendants later distributed bottled water and wet wipes.

Passenger Paulsam Chen wrote on social media: 'EVA Air is terrible. The air conditioning wasn't working, and they locked us in the cabin and wouldn't let us off the plane. We were scorching hot. I don't know what's going on. We told the flight attendants, but there's nothing we can do. What the hell is wrong with such a big airline.'

He said the temperature reached around 40 degrees Celsius and take-off to Beijing, China was reportedly postponed to 5:30 pm.

He added: 'There was a diesel and burnt smell, and soon people in safety suits came up to check repeatedly. It became increasingly difficult to breathe during the process. The temperature returned to normal after takeoff.'

The Taiwanese airline later apologised, saying it worked with ground crews to fix the malfunction as quickly as possible. The company said safety regulations and air traffic control restrictions meant passengers could not disembark.