Mum stranded in France may not get back to baby ‘for over a week’
Things are slowly getting back to normal when it comes to flights in and out of the UK, following huge disruption that began on bank holiday Monday.
Thousands of flights to and from the country were grounded due to a 'technical issue' at air traffic control, causing chaos overseas too.
The 'network-wide' failure meant that controllers were left having to enter flight details manually which, in turn, led to significant delays with many passengers being stuck on grounded planes for hours on end.
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In a statement, the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), apologised for the disruption, writing: "We have identified and remedied the technical issue affecting our flight planning system this morning.”
NATS later updated its initial statement to add: "It will take some time for flights to return to normal and we will continue to work with the airports and airlines to recover the situation.
"Our priority is always to ensure that every flight in the UK remains safe and we are sincerely sorry for the disruption this is causing. Please contact your airline for information on how this may affect your flight."
Officials have still yet to confirm what caused the failure, however, government sources and aviation officials have revealed to The Times that a cyberattack has been ruled out.
Nonetheless, thousands of Brits have been left stranded abroad, including Christine McGuinness who had 'no idea' when she'd be getting home from a summer getaway.
Another one of those is a British mother unable to get home to her baby as she is stranded in the French town of Limoges.
In fact, the mother admitted that she may not get home to her nine-month-old 'for over a week'.
Speaking to Sky News, she said: "I am in a bit of a pickle as I have got a nine-month-old baby at home and this is the longest I have ever been away. I don’t know what to do with myself.
"If I think about it too much I’ll cry."
She added: "At the minute, we're hearing that all flights are getting booked up, it could potentially be over a week to get back - that's all the information we have really got at the minute.
"We're trying to manically search different route options to get home."
While many airlines say they are running a usual service from today (30 August), transport secretary Mark Harper has warned that disruption may last for the days to come.
Callum Jones