Flight chaos grounds Brickies

Sittingbourne's trip to Guernsey in Ryman South on Saturday was called off after flights across the UK and Ireland were hit by a major air traffic control centre fault.

The National Air Traffic Control Service (Nats) said its Swanwick centre, in Hampshire, was having 'difficulty switching from night time to daytime operation', forcing the cancellation or delay of hundreds of flights including the Brickies' scheduled trip to the Channel Islands.

Affected airports included Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Cardiff, Dublin, and Glasgow. With schedules expected to hit until 6pm on Saturday, services were not expected to return to normal until Sunday.