JERSEY passengers have been left facing the “carnage” of trying rearrange flights after major disruption to air traffic systems caused travel chaos across the UK on Tuesday evening.
Hundreds of flights across the UK and Jersey were cancelled after a technical issue with the UK’s air traffic control systems – leaving some Jersey travellers having to divert their route through multiple countries, scrabbling to secure overnight accommodation at short notice, or spending hours stuck at airports.
Islander and local shop owner Claudia Alves was due to leave Porto for London at 9pm on Tuesday night, before getting an onward flights to Jersey yesterday morning.
However, her route home was cancelled, she was forced to shell out hundreds on new flights, trains and ferries to ensure she made it back to the Island in time for her young son’s birthday.
She said: “I tried rebooking for [Wednesday] but there was nothing available, so the options were: I wait until Friday and miss my son’s birthday or I try a different route”.
Mrs Alves instead travelled from Porto to Amsterdam, before heading to Nantes to catch a train to St Malo. From there, she boarded a ferry back to Jersey. The disruption meant she had to leave Portugal at 5am yesterday morning and was due to return to Jersey yesterday evening.
Another Jersey passenger, Craig Channing, who was travelling to America that he spent five hours sat on tarmac at London Heathrow.
He said: “The cargo doors were opened and they started to remove baggage that apparently the captain was not aware of.
“Once we saw that, we gathered our things as we knew it had been cancelled.
“The cabin leader then came over the tannoy to state that there was nothing BA could do- we had to leave the aircraft, grab our baggage and leave the Airport and fend for ourselves”.
He described the next few hours as “carnage” as everybody scrambled to find last minute accommodation and transport.
Mr Channing added that up until disembarking, the British Airways staff were “amazing”.
“We had it better than some planes. At least we were at the stand, some planes were on the runway ready to take off”, he added.
Jersey Bulls was forced to postpone its Tuesday night FA Cup fixture against Burgess Hill due to the issues affecting London flights. The club is attempting to find a suitable date to rerrange the cup replay.
The National Air Traffic Services issued a statement on Tuesday night, stating that work was “continuing to assist airlines and airports recover” from the disruption, which had created troubles for the “whole aviation network”.
