Speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, the transport secretary Heidi Alexander said that she did not believe the issue was “unavoidable”, as she said: “I am clear that passengers should not have to face this disruption.”

She has asked the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to carry out an independent review into the incident, which will report back in six months.

Stranded passengers hoping to contact airline support services on social media can often fall foul of fraudulent replies from fake accounts. These purport to be from official sources – using airline branding and generic names – but are actually run by individuals hoping to access private information.

Rob Burgess, editor of frequent flyer website Head for Points, warned: “Fake airline customer support lines are a long-term problem, but at time of major disruption its more likely people will get caught out. After all, it doesn't seem totally unbelievable that BA could have a separate Facebook page called 'BA Customer Support' or similar.

“A genuine social account should have a verification tick or similar and, more importantly, have a large number of followers and posts going back many years. Remember that you don't need to hand over your credit card details before someone gets vital information on you - just giving your booking reference and surname allows access your personal details, and that can be used for a non-travel related scam."

According to Cirium, the aviation analytics company, 2,093 flights have been affected by the Nats technical issue. The figure represents 5.91 per cent of the 5,869 scheduled flights. A normal day is between one and two per cent.

So far on Wednesday, 347 flights have been cancelled or did not fly.

Nats boss Martin Rolfe has the prime minister’s full support – but after a third major technical failure in as many years, grounding hundreds of flights and costing the British economy millions, it’s high time he was replaced, says James Moore.

Puspamathi Manogram has shared her experience of Heathrow delays with The Independent after a last-minute flight to visit her husband’s elderly mother in Sri Lanka was cancelled yesterday.

She said: “When we arrived at the airport, we were informed that the flight had been cancelled. We were simply advised to go home and contact the airline again the following day.

“This has put an immense amount of additional stress on both of us at an already incredibly difficult time. My husband is extremely anxious and worried that he may not make it in time to see his mother and say goodbye before she passes away.”

“I have finally made it to Naples for Arsenal's match against Napoli, a good 24 hours after I got to Gatwick on Tuesday,” says Miguel Delaney, The Independent’s Chief Football writer.

“After almost 11 hours in the airport – including two on the plane – Easyjet emailed through details of my changed flights at 2.15am.

“En route this morning, I checked in for the new flight only to find that the app couldn't give me a boarding pass.

“It presented a problem as I was going to have to get a physical boarding pass. Amid the mayhem. And then a train broke down, turning a 24-minute journey into a 40-minute one, before another delay on the shuttle to the north terminal.

“Easyjet staff were thankfully very quick and efficient. So, on physically being given a boarding pass at 9.42am, I somehow made it to the gate for 9.55am, exactly when it was supposed to close.”

Passengers have been advised to check with their airline for the latest flight information as operations recover at Glasgow airport.

The airport said: “Flights continued to operate yesterday and today, but we are expecting ongoing disruption as aircraft and crew reposition. We advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest flight information and to only travel if they have a confirmed flight operating today.”

Nats, the National Air Traffic Service, said its operations are “stable” following Tuesday’s incident that led to hundreds of flight cancellations.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, the air traffic control provider said: “Our operations are stable, and we continue to work closely with airlines and airports to support their recovery from the ongoing disruption to their operations.

“We would also like to reiterate our apology to all those affected – passengers, airlines and airports – by our system issue yesterday.

“While our immediate focus is on safely managing today’s flights, a full investigation will be conducted to establish what happened and identify any further action needed.”