The Independent has been contacted by scores of passengers who are stranded at airports around the country.

One, David Faulkner, said his son and his three friends were due to return from Palma to Bristol with easyJet on Monday but had been left “stranded” with the airline apparently saying the next earliest flight available would be in a week’s time.

He said: “Easyjet have done nothing for any of them. No food, water and no arrangements for hotels. They have been told to find accommodation as the earliest flight is next Monday. A whole week!”

He added: “They have very little money left and will have to sleep rough with nothing but dirty clothes. They cannot get through to easyJet and the British Consulate was closed. Other flights are impossible to find and costs of going elsewhere or via other countries is astronomical.”

The worst hit airport on Monday for flight delays and cancellations was London Heathrow, with 312 arrivals and departures cancelled, just ahead of London Gatwick on 300, Simon Calder writes.

The Heathrow figure includes a number of long-haul flights, including transatlantic departures to Chicago, Philadelphia and Toronto.

Further flight cancellations have been made at Heathrow on Tuesday, due to the number of planes and crew out of position.

In the worst single day’s disruption to UK flying since the Icelandic volcano in 2010, an estimated 200,000 passengers will be waking up on Tuesday morning where they did not intend to be, Simon Calder writes.

On one of the busiest days of the year for travellers, the UK air-traffic control system failed for several hours – grounding more than 1,200 flights, and delaying thousands more.

The Independent has calculated the figures using information from the aviation data service Flightradar24.

At least 300 flights have been cancelled to and from the UK’s second-busiest airport, London Gatwick, as a result of Monday’s air-traffic control failure.

The Independent has identified more than 200 cancellations on easyJet alone, including many longer flights to destinations including Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus.

British Airways has grounded around 30 flights to and from Gatwick, including multiple flights to the Canary Islands and Turkey.

Vueling, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Norwegian and TAP Portugal also cancelled flights.

Londoner Julian Eccles has lost half of his four-day trip to central Italy and Lake Garda. His easyJet flight from Gatwick to Ancona was cancelled and he had to book with TUI to Verona on Wednesday morning instead.

A British journalist who faces being stuck in France for up to six days due to the technical issue affecting air traffic control systems said there is uncertainty over who will pay for the extended stay.

Rory Dollard, 40, cricket correspondent at PA Media, said he and other passengers stuck at Bergerac Dordogne Perigord Airport have heard “absolutely nothing” about what caused the technical fault, which led to his Ryanair flight not taking off.

He added that he was told it may take up to six days before he and his family - wife Joanne, 40, and children Emily, 10, and Arthur, eight - can return home to Skipton, North Yorkshire.

He said: “I’ve never been in a situation like this before and because of the language barrier, it’s hard to work out exactly who’s responsible for which part of the cost.

“If you need to find a hotel for the next five/six nights, who’s paying for this? Is it Ryanair? Is it your insurer? Is it somebody else?”

He added that he could miss covering three England matches, while his wife, who is a social worker, could face delays to “important cases”.

Gemma Breslaw, her husband and their two children – aged four and five – had been told they were facing “awful” delays of 12 hours at the airport in Rome, where they witnessed “lots of angry people shouting at the staff”.

However, they were eventually told their flight was cancelled hours after their planned take-off time.

Despite having found a hotel in Rome, the family were unable to find a flight to take them back to Gatwick until 7am on Wednesday. Describing herself as “beyond fed up and annoyed”, she told The Independent: “Who wants that flight with two little kids?!”

But she joked that she would try to enjoy Rome from their Marriot Park hotel while her husband “moans about [missing] work”.

National Air Traffic Services’ operations director Juliet Kennedy has issued a new video statement.

She said: “First of all, I’d like to apologise for the impact on people’s travel plans today. The issue we had earlier meant that our automatic system which provides controllers with details of every aircraft and its route wasn’t working. Instead, to manage safety, we had to limit the number of flights we could manage.

“Our teams worked hard to resolve the problem and I’m pleased to say it was fixed earlier on this afternoon. However it will take some time for flights to return to normal. And we will continue to work with the airlines and the airports to recover the situation.

“Our absolute priority is safety and we will be investigating very thoroughly what happened today.”

David Hill, a 61 year old GP in Surrey, and his wife had been staying with friends in the south of France for a weekend break, and he had been set to fly home from Nice at 7:45pm in order to be back for appointments with his patients at 8:30am until 7pm on Tuesday.

But as the chaos unfolded, the Hills were faced with hours of uncertainty. As their departure time changed initially to 6am on Tuesday, they booked a hotel for the night – but were told shortly afterwards that their flight had been changed again to 2am, before it was again shifted to 4:30am.

Eventually, their flight was cancelled, with no replacements available until Thursday and EasyJet saying they were unable to help them find a hotel, Mr Hill told The Independent.

The Independent has calculated from the British Airways website that BA has cancelled more than 150 flights from its main base, London Heathrow.

At least three transatlantic flights have been grounded: to Chicago, Philadelphia and Toronto.

Among domestic and European destinations, the routes with the most cancellations linked Heathrow with: Amsterdam, Athens, Edinburgh, Milan, Nice and Paris.

British Airways has said that any customers due to travel today or tomorrow can move their flights to a later date free of charge, subject to availability.

The airline said in a statement: “Like all airlines using UK airspace, our flights have been severely disrupted as a result of a major issue experienced by NATS Air Traffic Control on Monday 28 August. While NATS has now resolved the issue, it has created significant and unavoidable delays and cancellations.

“If you are due to fly with us on Monday 28 August, please do not travel to the airport without checking the status of your flight, as it may no longer be operating. You can do this by visiting Manage My Booking and checking your email inbox.

“If you are at the airport waiting to board your flight, please continue to check flight information boards and your email for further updates.

“Any customers due to travel on Monday 28 August or Tuesday 29 August can move their flights free of charge to a later date, subject to availability. We are also rebooking customers onto alternative airlines where possible and have stood up additional colleagues in our call centres to assist our customers.”