Holidaymakers are stuck across the UK and abroad
By David Grundy & Antonia Matthews
BBC Wales news
Holidaymakers faced further chaos on Tuesday following an air traffic control fault.
Passengers were left stranded on airport and hotel floors with no clarity on when they could return home.
Cardiff Airport said it was no longer experiencing delays, but the knock-on effect of Monday’s technical issue caused more disruption for people abroad.
“There’s nobody here you can talk to,” said Victoria Cadwallader-Webb.
Ms Cadwallader-Webb from Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taf, has type 1 diabetes and was due to fly back to Cardiff from the Bulgarian coastal city of Burgas.
Victoria Cadwallader-Webb, who has type 1 diabetes, was left stranded at Burgas Airport in Bulgaria
She said tour operator Tui had told her to travel to the airport despite the technical issues.
She said she had enough insulin with her at the airport, but would run out of other medication she needed to take alongside it within six to 12 hours.
“If I can’t get my suitcase back… I’m going to have to start making provisions to try and get medication,” she said late on Monday.
Tui said it was contacting affected passengers directly.
Watch: The day UK air traffic control went down… in 71 seconds
Steph Wagstaff from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said her family of six had slept at the airport after their flight was cancelled from the Canary Islands back to Bristol.
She said that while EasyJet had offered her alternative accommodation, it was two separate rooms for two people which she said would not have been suitable.
Instead, she said Tyler and Fynn, both 10, slept on chairs, while Gracie, five, was in a blow-up rubber ring and Nyah, three, was in a stroller.
When asked how she felt, Steph added: “I’m annoyed, upset, anxious due to the unknown and I should be returning to work Wednesday morning, which could possibly put me at risk with my employment.”
Image source, Steph Wagstaff
People have been sleeping on airport floors as they await flight information
Sarah Cox, from Magor in Monmouthshire, was also stranded in Burgas after her Tui flight to Cardiff was cancelled.
She said what had been been “a lovely holiday” had now been ruined.
“I’m a midwife and I was due in work tomorrow (Wednesday) so I’ve had to arrange cover for my antenatal clinic and my 16 ladies there,” Ms Cox added.
Some holidaymakers in Bulgaria still have no clear answer on when they can return home
She said she had been told she would get a flight back on Wednesday at the earliest.
“Things are more organised today but we still have no definitive answer as to when we’ll go home,” Ms Cox said.
“My daughter is missing her birthday meal with my family tonight, and my friend’s son was due to collect his GCSE results this morning.”
Why are flights being cancelled?
The system airlines use is “highly automated” and everything that once was done manually is now done by a computer.
Technical glitches in that system went down and caused disruption for passengers.
Former BA pilot Cat Burton explained how pilots would hand a flight plan to assistants, who would then pass it on to the air traffic controller to put it into the system.
With that system being computerised, it meant people lost their jobs. Airlines now have to revert to the old paper manual system until the problem is fixed.
“The only people available now are the air traffic controllers themselves and they can’t do it while on the microphone controlling another aeroplane,” said Ms Burton, who used to be a flight instructor in Cardiff .
“So another controller will have to be taken off task so they only end up with half the controllers available to them.”
Katrina Dimech, 35, from Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, was due to fly out from Bristol Airport to Gran Canaria on Monday with her partner, two children and her father.
“It was total chaos with no seats at all, so people were sitting on the floors,” she said.
“When we were eventually told at 9pm that our flights were cancelled and that they were not going to put anyone up in a hotel or help with transport or anything, people were crying their eyes out.”
Katrina Dimech and family had to return to Penarth from Bristol airport after their flight was cancelled
The family is now back in Penarth and hoping to find an alternative last-minute holiday.
National Air Traffic Services (Nats) confirmed the fault just after midday on Monday, before it announced just over three hours later that it had identified and remedied the issue.
But it said it would “take some time for flights to return to normal”.
An investigation into what went wrong has been launched.
Cardiff Airport CEO Spencer Birns said shortly before midday on Tuesday that the majority of the airport’s flights had caught up quickly and he did not anticipate any further disruption at this stage.
“We recommend for our customers to contact their airline for any updates,” he said.
