- Iwan StoneHost commentator
The Only Way Is Essex star Junaid Ahmed is among those battling to get home from abroad.
He made his reality TV debut on Lovestruck High – where singles were taken to a high school environment where they fought to find love, as well as a £80,000 prize.
He told MailOnline: ‘Currently stuck on a BA flight and have been for 3 hours and being told we won’t be flying until 10pm this eve due to air traffic network going down.’
The Only Way Is Essex star Junaid Ahmed is among those battling to get home from abroad
A bit closer to home, the Reed family are trying to get home to Bristol after visiting their aunt near Aberdeen.
Carole said: ‘We were travelling from visiting my aunt in Alford (Aberdeenshire) to Edinburgh to catch a flight tonight back to Bristol.
‘Currently sat in Subway in Dundee trying to figure out how we get home. We need to return our hire car and three of us have work tomorrow.
‘Looked at trains and will cost us over £600 to get to Bristol Temple Meads. Thankful we are not abroad or sat on planes on tarmac.’
The Reed family are trying to get home to Bristol after visiting their aunt near Aberdeen
Most brides hope their hen dos are memorable – but for one, who is currently hunkered down in Palma airport – this might be taking it to the extreme.
Glamorous Elizabeth, 25, and her friend Beth, 26, are nursing hangovers as screaming kids surround them while they wait to get back to Stanstead.
Beth told MailOnline ‘It’s utter chaos, people are running back and forth between gates.
‘They haven’t told us anything. The Ryanair app is still saying it’s boarding at the correct time.
‘I don’t think we’re leaving today.’
And Beth was not any luckier with the rest of the rest of the hen-do – as their holiday was spent hiding from awful weather.
She continued: ‘We arrived on Wednesday and endured the storm. We were right in the middle of the tornado actually.
‘The bride’s family are from New Jersey and their flight actually set off yesterday but the storm diverted them to Madrid, which is where they are.
‘It’s just me and the bride now, hungover and sitting on the floor
‘We’re making a joke of it, all the cafes are full and there’s sounds of screaming kids everywhere.’
Glamorous Elizabeth, 25, (right) and her friend Beth, 26, (left) are nursing hangovers as they wait to get home
Most brides hope their hen dos are memorable – but for one, who is currently hunkered down in Palma airport – this might be taking it to the extreme
They now find themselves surrounded by screaming kids while they wait to get back to Stanstead
It’s not all doom and gloom as resourceful Brits look to make the best of a bad situation.
Steph joked that she was ‘making the most of the delays’ as she got the beers in.
Steph joked that she was ‘making the most of the delays’
London Luton Airport said it was working with the authorities to ‘understand the impact and the timescale for normal operations to resume’, while British Airways also said it was working closely with NATS to understand the impact.
Dublin Airport said the air traffic control issues were resulting in delays and cancellations to some flights into and out of the Irish capital and advised passengers due to travel today to check the status of their flight with their airline in advance.
View from the air of planes parked at Terminal 3 of London’s Heathrow Airport, 2017
Britons returning from Tenerife told MailOnline she had been told to expect a wait of 12 hours.
One traveller – called Phillippa – told MailOnline: ‘I’m currently sat on the plane at Tenerife South waiting to come home.
‘The pilot has announced he has no idea how long we will be sat in Tenerife and he doesn’t know when we will be able to take off.
‘This could be in 12 hours time.’
One passenger – called Laura – said: ‘We’ve been sat on the tarmac at Palma Airport for over two hours already, the plane to Bristol was due to take off at 11:35am and about 12pm we got an update to say there was issues in the UK with air traffic control and we were told our slot wouldn’t be until 11pm this evening then that got reduced until 9pm.
‘We’re still on the plane and awaiting further updates with the latest update about 30 minutes ago saying they are hoping the 9pm delays is now reduced to 4 hours (we’re not sure if that is four hours from now or four hours from our original take off time)!
‘To add to it, Palma airport was already chaos this morning following the storms yesterday and all the cancelled and delayed flights.
‘Queues were snaked around outside the airport and people were sleeping all over the airport terminal. Happy holidays!’
Laura’s flight from Palma was due to set off at 11.35am
He said: ‘Pilot advised of the air traffic control issue and said that while we may be first in line for any departure here, he had no further information.
‘Only delayed a half hour now but fear this may be a long delay. Fortunately we’re at the end of our trip from Paris to Ireland to see Notre Dame play and now heading back to the States – at some point.’
Eric Parzianello is on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit
One passenger, Danni – who is travelling back to the UK from Lanzarote – told MailOnline she had been told to expect a delay of at least 10 hours.
This is a photo she took from her window.
Danni is travelling back to the UK from Lanzarote
NATS – the UK-based air traffic control service – said in a statement: ‘We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety. Engineers are working to find and the fix the fault.
‘We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.’
In an updated statement at 12.40, they added: ‘We are continuing to work hard to resolve the technical issue.
‘To clarify, UK airspace is not closed, we have had to apply air traffic flow restrictions which ensures we can maintain safety.’
An aviation expert shares a map showing the area that has been affected by the shutdown
Travel expert Simon Calder said the system outage would cause ‘misery’ for passengers – with contagion likely spreading across Europe.
He said travellers should ‘assume’ their flight was operating normally and predicted airlines would be forced to pay out millions in compensation.
Mr Calder told Sky News: ‘There is very little slack in the system. It’s going to be miserable. Meanwhile there and hundreds of planes up in the sky heading to the UK.
‘What’s going to happen to those aircraft, will some of them get down if they are in the vicinity of the airfield.
‘Otherwise you will see planes held on the ground in places like Amsterdam or otherwise being diverted if they’re on a longer flight. That would typically be to a continental airport or an Irish airport.’
He said the shutdown would not cause safety issues because the system was ‘designed to cope’ with a shutdown and aircraft carried contingency fuel.
But he added: ‘This is of course one of the busiest days of the year. There are hundreds of thousands of people flying into the UK, frankly this is the last thing anyone needs.
‘It will at the very least have caused enough disruption for the system to be in disarray for certainly until the end of the day and possibly for a few further days ahead.’
The travel guru said air traffic controllers at Heathrow – the UK’s busiest airport – be forced to reduce the frequency at which flights are able to land.
He explained: ‘Normally you have flights landing typically every 90 seconds or so. They can switch away from the digital system and become much more analogue, bringing the aircraft in more manually. However, you are not going to be able to do it at the same rate.
‘For Heathrow and Gatwick in particular there is so little slack in the system that it can cause problems. If you’re reducing the flow rate coming in and keeping aircraft on the ground at those airports it will be a very difficult afternoon.’
TV presenter Gabby Logan is among those affected by the shutdown, which has left her stranded on the runway at Budapest Airport.
She wrote: ‘After almost 3 weeks away from home I am hours from hugging my family. And have just been told UK airspace is shut. We could be here for 12 hours. So we sit on the plane and wait.’
In a further Tweet she added: ‘It’s allowing traffic in there’s already airborne but nothing else to take off.’
She continued: ‘Now regretting my decision to miss breakfast.’
Gabby Logan is stranded at Budapest Airport. Pictured: Prior to the Vitality Women’s FA Cup Quarter Final
The news was leaked out by the Scottish airline Loganair, which shared the news on Twitter.
It tweeted: ‘There has been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems this morning.
‘Although we are hopeful of being able to operate most intra-Scotland flights on the basis of local coordination and with a minimum of disruption, north-south and international flights maybe subject to delays.
‘If you are flying with us today, please check our website for the latest information about your flight before setting off for the airport.’
The UK’s air traffic control system has suffered a ‘huge network failure’ on one of the busiest days of the year – causing chaos for travellers that could last days.
Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said it is experiencing ‘technical issues’ that had forced controllers to reduce the rate flights are able to land and take off.
This has led to scores of flights being delayed both in and out of the UK for an average of around three hours.
