‘It looks like we're missing the wedding'
Hundreds of thousands of people faced travel chaos at the start of the summer holidays after technical issues caused the closure of London's airspace for more than an hour.
Despite being resolved, the failure left travellers facing hours-long delays amid fears that disruption could last for days.
Monica Clare, a 68-year-old from London, fears she will miss a wedding after her Aer Lingus flight from Heathrow to the Republic of Ireland, was cancelled.
She was due to fly with her cousin Geri Hawkins, 71, to a wedding in Limerick at 2.40pm. But after being stranded on the runway, the flight was cancelled after the captain's shift ended.
'The wedding is in Limerick on Friday but a hotel and hire car are awaiting us tonight,' Ms Clare told The Telegraph. 'I was anxious for getting to Shannon while it's still daylight as I was meant to be driving when I get to the other end.
'But at 5.30pm the captain told us their shift had finished so Aer Lingus HQ in Dublin cancelled the flight. We have been told to get updates back at the departure terminal as to when and how we can travel. We are completely fed up now.
'We were told to wait for a phone update about a flight tomorrow but others were told all flights tomorrow are already full. It's totally awful. We probably have to go home and wait to see when the next available flight is. It looks like we're missing the wedding.'
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said passengers affected by the air traffic control failure should be given 'food and drink' if they are stranded and those forced to stay overnight should be given hotel accommodation.
But they will not receive any compensation for cancellations or delays because the failure is deemed to be 'extraordinary circumstances' and not the airline's fault.
Durand Meachem, 49, a fellow Heathrow passenger, was travelling with his partner and two daughters on a 'trip of a lifetime' taking in New York, London, Dubai and Thailand to mark his upcoming 50th birthday.
'We are supposed to take off at 10.30pm, but being that no flights have come in, all the flights are delayed,' he said.
Children aboard a grounded plane at Heathrow were offered a tour of the cockpit during their delay.
Dionne Ukleja, who is travelling with her teenage daughter from Heathrow to Houston, Texas, said 'at one point the pilot even opened up the flight deck and invited the kids to have a look'.
'We were supposed to take off at 2.50pm,' she said. 'We were third in the queue when the radar went down. They had us sitting on the tarmac for a while before asking us to move across the airport to park next to the Concorde. After about 20 minutes there, we were sent back to the stands.'
In Edinburgh, a group of 40 French holidaymakers were left stranded after two flights to Paris were cancelled.
Sophie Viaud, 49, said she was 'dejected' when her flight was cancelled and now had to fly to Milan, Italy, and then to the French capital on Thursday morning.
Another passenger, who did not want to be named, added: 'It's better for the flight to be cancelled than to be killed.'
Isabella Shepherd-Evans, 23, was left 'stuck on the tarmac' at Faro, Portugal, after her EasyJet flight to London Gatwick was turned around just as the pilot started to taxi down the runway.
'Flight attendants were handing out water and both doors were opened, warning of lengthy delays,' she said.
The flight eventually took off at 4.53pm, an hour and half after its planned 3.25pm departure.
Jack Rickeard's Jet2 flight from Newcastle to Rhodes, Greece, was delayed for an hour by the outage.
'We have been lucky enough to get a new departure route via Scotland and the Netherlands, so my flight is leaving only about an hour late,' he said. 'Not everyone else is as lucky.'
Domenico Sorrentino, 47, was diverted to Paris after his EasyJet flight from Naples, Italy, to Gatwick was diverted to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
He said he was aiming to get 'back home' but is 'waiting for information' on how to do so.
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