A family looking forward to a £27,000 Cannes holiday are 'disappointed' that their daughter won't get to celebrate her eighth birthday abroad, yet expressed comfort at the thought that 'everybody is in the same situation'.

Their lavish plans were thrown into disarray as a result of the air traffic control turmoil affecting UK passengers, and they must now spend a week in London instead.

The mother, who lives in Cheshire, said her daughter was 'disappointed' that they weren't able to fly to the South of France until at least today. 

The unnamed family, who were set to fly out from Hawarden Airport in Flintshire, north Wales, told the MailOnline: "We were heading to Cannes for a holiday and we were told we can maybe go tomorrow. The knock-on delays may mean it’s not worth it.

"My daughter was disappointed but what’s made it easier is everyone is in the same situation.

"We’ve turned around and headed home, we just decided we couldn’t be bothered. The reality is, nobody is going anywhere so it doesn’t really matter."

The air travel disruption that hit the UK on the bank holiday is set to last for several days, Transport Secretary Mark Harper has warned.

"Lots of flights were cancelled and it is going to take some days to get people back to where they should be," he said to the BBC.

The widespread disruption, which led to hundreds of flights being cancelled, was caused by a failure of air traffic control systems.

Issues began yesterday morning at the headquarters of the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) when its flight planning system failed. 

NATS was unable to automatically process the flight plans that are submitted by airlines - meaning they had to be inputted manually, causing delays. 

According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, 790 departures from British airports were cancelled yesterday - equivalent to about 27% of all departures. 

Some 785 arrivals were also cancelled, again equating to about 27%.