From hours stuck on planes awaiting takeoff, to sleeping the night on the floor at Heathrow. Here are some travellers’ experiences

More than 2,000 flights have been cancelled after an air traffic control system failure that has thrown airports across the UK into chaos. Nats, the air traffic control provider, fixed the problem within hours on Tuesday, but hundreds of thousands of passengers were hit by further delays and cancellations on Wednesday.

Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of Nats, has been given a week to report back on the reasons for the technical failure.

I was all alone in a Washington DC hotel on my birthday – and someone else had received my children’s message by mistake

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

In the 1990s I travelled extensively for work, leaving behind my young family. It was tough on us all. One trip took me to Washington DC on my birthday. I was sitting in my hotel room, alone and feeling sorry for myself, when there was a knock at the door.

On the other side was a bellboy holding a birthday cake, complete with lit candles on top. “Happy birthday!” he said, handing me the cake and a fax. My two very young daughters had handwritten a lovely happy birthday message and sent it to the other side of the world.