Delayed holidaymakers should check their travel insurance

Passengers on transatlantic flights that were grounded at the weekend due to a breakdown in air traffic control should check their travel insurance to see if they are entitled to compensation.

Dozens of flights to the United States, Canada and the Caribbean were held on the ground at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports while engineers tried to fix a computer problem.

Travel insurance generally provides holidaymakers with compensation for lengthy delays that are outside the passengers' control.

While most of the flights are believed to have been held up by only a few hours, holidaymakers should check the wording of their travel insurance policies to see if they are entitled to a pay-out.

Holidaymakers are unlikely to receive anything from the airlines involved as most of the delays were less than five hours. Normally those who were held up for more than five hours are given the opportunity to cancel their flights with a full refund, but this might not have happened as the delays were outside the airlines' control.

British Airways, one of the biggest airlines affected at Heathrow airport, said not all its flights were delayed and those that were hit were held on the ground for only a few hours.

Air traffic control said the fault occurred at the Shanwick control unit which handles more than 1,200 flights a day.

Saturday's breakdown was one of the biggest for five years. The worst in recent history was in 2004 when the NATS' flight data processing system failed at West Drayton near Heathrow.

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