Hundreds of flights affected by air traffic control problems

The Dollard family are now stuck in France after having their flight cancelled

Families going on holiday, or coming back from abroad, have been facing major delays after one of the big UK airport systems broke down.

Hundreds of flights into and out of the UK have been cancelled or delayed after technology problems affected the air traffic control system yesterday.

Air traffic control is the system which helps airline pilots take off and land safely and also looks after the planes that are in the sky.

The problems have meant that many people travelling for the bank holiday and summer holidays are stuck in the UK and abroad.

Even though the issue has now been fixed, airlines have warned that disruption could last for the next few days.

What happened at the airports?

Hundreds of flights in and out of the UK were cancelled

The technical problem was confirmed by the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) just after midday on Monday.

It apologised for the disruption caused by the fault and said it was "working closely with airlines and airports" to get things running as normal again.

Nats said the issue had been with its planning system which meant that the number of planes landing in the UK had to be limited.

The rare event led to long flight delays, with thousands of passengers stuck on planes and at airports.

All airlines operating in the UK were affected, with more than five hundred flights into and out of the UK cancelled.

Even though the issue is now resolved, it could take a number of days to get back to normal

Around three hours later it was announced that the problem had been resolved meaning that airliners and their passengers should begin moving again.

However it could take a number of days for flights to return to normal.

Nats apologised for the impact on people's travel plans and said it would investigate why the problem had happened.

The government's Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, said it will take "some days to get... everybody to where they should be."

He also said that "the last time there was something this significant was about a decade ago, so these things do not happen frequently."