An air traffic control glitch caused hundreds of flights from some of the UK's busiest airports to be cancelled this week, leaving many passengers stranded or waiting for hours. It's thought it'll be days before the back log caused by the disruption is cleared. Does the thought of travel disruption put you off booking holidays?
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00:00 I've not got travel plans, I do work in a school and I wonder how that will affect the
00:05 teachers coming back and the children coming back because I've read in the newspaper today
00:10 that it can be up to 10 days because some of the flights are away and they've used up
00:15 all the time to get back so it's that knock-on effect throughout the country so I think schools
00:20 will be disrupted and workplaces this week.
00:23 I don't have any of my own travel plans but I have a lot of friends that have travel plans
00:27 that have been disrupted like coming back to Edinburgh or to visit people and I have
00:32 a couple of friends that are going away soon and they're definitely worried but it doesn't
00:37 really put me off flying because it kind of happens all the time like there's always going
00:41 to be situations like this.
00:42 I'm away in three weeks.
00:44 Does this concern you, these kind of delays that are happening?
00:48 Well when you look at the TV this morning they're saying it's going to take a couple
00:51 of weeks to normalise so yeah I am a little bit concerned.
00:55 According to data from analytics firm Sirium, more than a quarter of all planned flights
00:59 both in and out of airports in the UK were cancelled on Bank Holiday Monday.
01:04 It was caused by a technical fault with air traffic control with industry body the IATA
01:09 saying the air traffic control service NATS had crucial questions to answer about their
01:14 responsibility for this fiasco.
01:17 It means another year in a row for travel chaos at UK airports but has it put you off
01:21 travelling abroad this year and beyond?
01:24 I went to Cyprus just a few weeks ago and then we had a whole long delay, a few hours
01:30 so like instead of long because we had to wait in the airport for ages and I just got
01:37 all my stuff taken in the airport so I was sitting in the holiday so I was sitting there
01:41 with nothing just doing absolutely nothing and then you get hungry and then the places
01:46 to eat in the airport are expensive so you're already spending money extra because of the
01:50 delays, it was a couple of hours so we had to go eat in the airport extra because we
01:53 had to wait longer so I think there should be compensation.
01:56 It definitely puts me off booking a break, my husband and I would like to get away for
02:02 a city break but we just find at the moment we just don't see the point in queuing, flights
02:08 being disrupted and we just want a smooth travel if we're just going for a short break,
02:13 we don't want to feel that all this disruption has happened.
02:16 I wouldn't change my travel plans because I realise it's happened, I have travelled a
02:20 lot recently and in the last year I've had two flights cancelled, one I had to stay overnight
02:26 the other I just had to wait a few hours, actually I didn't mind having the flight cancelled
02:31 that made me stay another day because the airline played for the hotel and I wasn't
02:35 going back to work the next day but the more I travel the more I realise disruption is
02:39 possible and I almost travelled over this weekend but I changed my mind so I'm glad
02:44 I did.
02:45 But I heard a few people about their compensation Mark, is there any difference?
02:47 I see on TikTok and stuff like the airport's promised hotel accommodation but then when
02:53 they go to collect their accommodation they're like oh yeah we've got no room and there's
02:56 people like newborn babies and stuff just stranded in airports and can't even.
03:00 My sister travelled to Australia yesterday but she seemed to get on her flight fine.