Many travellers from Britain affected by air traffic control issues across the nation

Recent air traffic control failures in Britain have begun to cause widespread disruptions to travellers looking to fly in and out of the nation, with it unclear as to when operations will resume normally again. Many people have seen their flights delayed or cancelled because of a technical glitch occurring at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS)

Yesterday, the British government ordered a review into these air traffic control failures to dissect the specifics of what happened and caused many passengers to be left in the dark about their travel plans.

With it being the last remaining days before children return to the classrooms for the new school year, many families will have been eager to make their way back from their holidays. Therefore, this air traffic control disruption will have heavily frustrated many in Britain and caused frustrating circumstances for travellers.

Despite the technical failure which occurred on bank holiday Monday having been attended to and now dealt with, there is still a knock-on effect from what occurred, and airports and airlines are still dealing with issues and delays.

Those to have been severely affected by the flight disruptions include Serena Hamilton from Cookstown, Northern Ireland, who was scheduled to attend a heart transplant check-up appointment at Newcastle Freeman Hospital on Tuesday morning. Due to the disruptions, there was not a single flight from Belfast International Airport that was able to get her to the appointment on time.

Hamilton spoke to BBC News Northern Ireland about the critical disruption caused to her and expressed frustration over the situation. She said: "I had a transplant 15 months ago and these appointments are very important. That's a loss of an appointment not just for me, but someone else could have taken that appointment and I'm not going to be able to inform them because the clinic is closed today."

Travellers departing from Alicante Airport in Elche, Spain, were scheduled to fly back to Belfast International on Monday morning but found themselves still on the tarmac in Spain hours later. The passengers had to anxiously wait on the plane in the hope of positive news and some would have felt they were not looked after particularly well, as food was not provided free of charge despite the dire situation.

For travellers at Belfast International Airport on bank holiday Monday, the situation was not pleasant as people had to sit on concrete bollards outside the airport's main terminal. Also, there was a pregnant woman who had to sit on the floor, given that was the only suitable place for her to sit, whilst the area around plug sockets in the airport was surrounded by travellers looking to charge their phones.

The chaos that unfolded on Monday caused some travellers to make their way to Dublin Airport and find alternative travel routes from there or even find a ferry to travel on. Unfortunately for some, they were to find out that there would be no new availability of flights until two days later.

A notable number of flights at Belfast International Airport from EasyJet had to be called off completely and these included flights to Birmingham, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Paris.

Irish professional athletes competing at this year's World Athletics Championships in Budapest were affected by the travel disruptions as many could not arrive back in Dublin due to flight cancellations.

Ireland's official governing athletics body, Athletics Ireland, reported that 15 of its staff members and some athletes had to remain on the runway at Budapest Ferenc Liszt Airport for nearly four hours before they got confirmation of their flight's cancellation.

Also, approximately 40 staff and athletes apart from Britain's athletics governing body, UK Athletics, were unable to leave Budapest as scheduled on Monday evening due to flight cancellations and had to make their way back to their hotels. Some of the affected athletes who could not depart Budapest instead flew out to Zurich, Switzerland, as the Diamond League event is set to take place there on Thursday.

Regarding how long disruptions are set to go on for, disruptions will continue for a third consecutive day, as on Wednesday morning, aviation analytics company, Cirium, reported that 64 flights attached to British airports were cancelled. The most cancellations of flights are set to occur at Heathrow with Edinburgh and Aberdeen following behind.

The level of disruption caused by this recent air traffic control failure will worry travellers who will fear similar problems in the future may affect their travels. To address these concerns, the head of NATS, Martin Rolfe, told the BBC that the disruptions were a result of an "incredibly rare" failure with the system.

Rolfe explained that NATS will be better prepared for any future technical failures with air traffic control, saying: "If that happens again, we can resolve it very, very quickly. We understand the way the system didn't handle the data, the way it failed."