I could cry

keitha sorry to hear that. The country has gone to rats.

Sorry to hear that keitha, it does sound all too typical of the (lack of) service provided by the low cost carriers .

A related story - a friend of mine's daughter has just done her GCSEs.  She, and five of her friends, were being taken by the mum of one of the friends to their time share apartment in Spain for a week as a celebration.  Not only had they all just done their GCSEs, they were all going on to the same senior school (college?) to do their A-levels together.  Only the daughter of the mum with the time-share didn't get the necessary grades.  

Then they turned up at the airport, at silly o'clock in the morning, to find out that their flight had been cancelled.  The only alternative was a connecting flight via... Oslo (!!!!), with a nine hour layover.  No airport staff available.  No airline staff available.  No facilities open.  Nobody answering the phone.

They ended up flying to Madrid, hiring a people carrier, and driving however many hours it took to get to the apartment.  But still... 

As for taking six sixteen year old girls on holiday, five of whom are celebrating, and one of whom is distraught...  Nope.  That's way above my pay grade!

Those airlines deserve a massive kick up the arse.

Not in the case of my friend's daughter, because it was last week some time, but quite possibly in the case of keitha's daughter.

What a mess for those scheduled to fly from the airports and sorry for those whom are affected.

It’s true it’s unfair as not all flights cancelled. Anyone could have been affected by a similar incident but really, vital system failure like this one is unacceptable.

Flights are so cheap these days that there is surely no money built in for contingency. I don't know whether or not it is true what Adrian says here but suggest it isn't - at least a blanket non-liability for consequential loss seems unlikely.

I would like to see this toughened up so that airlines, atc and indeed all actors in the industry feel more pressure for things not to go wrong and when they do they put all of their pasengers back in the position they were in before they attempted their flight. Particular focus on queuing and time spent in the airport.

If that means ticket prices go up then great. At least there would be a service worth buying. As it stands, I feel we almost have a service for the young and fit - those who don't mind a bit of hardship. For the elderly, disabled and those with young children its much harder.

I'm not sure I understand the question, but maybe you have read something I have not. My understanding was that the issue was that the system(s) they use for automated filing of flight plans had a problem, and hence flight plans were having to be entered manually which not surprisingly is a massively slower process. And that was the cause of the chaos. 

As to what would happen if a commercial airliner is seen to not be following is filed flight plan: I would imagine that has the potential for all hell to break loose. How can you plan for things like aircraft separation if you no longer trust it will route per the filed flight plan ? And the risk that the deviation from plan had security / terrorist associations. 

EDIT: So now catching up with a story in The Times. It sounds to me like the suspicion is on a conversion of data actually brought down the relevant system in some way. If so, that would be pretty damning, especially given that NATS is meant to be adept at producing robust systems (it needs to be). I guess we will find out in the fullness of time.