Passengers in 'no man's land' after being diverted to countries they are not allowed to enter

Passengers are stuck in "no man's land", travel expert Simon Calder has warned.

He describes the situation as "absolutely awful for so many," with passengers facing the "appalling situation" of trying to re-plan their journey.

He explains the airline is "absolutely responsible" for providing a hotel, giving you meals and getting you to your destination if you're a flying on a British or European airline out of Heathrow.

"The people you need to be concerned about are those flying in from the outside Europe," he tells our presenter Anna Jones.

"Those airlines, because they're not British, do not have any obligations when they are flying to the UK from their home countries."

"An awful lot of passengers are not even planning to spend any time at Heathrow. They just want to connect through. And let's just take, if we may, the flight from Accra in Ghana, which is currently on the ground in Lille in southern France.

"Lovely place, but if you're one of the many Ghanaian passengers, there is a pretty good chance that you won't necessarily have permission to enter France because you weren't expecting to be there.

"At which point they are going to be stuck in a kind of no man's land. Waiting in the transit lounge until something can happen to them."

Calder says questions will be raised over how a critical piece of national infrastructure can be put out of action.

"I'm going to hope that what Heathrow did by saying it will close until midnight tonight, that they did that out of an abundance of caution, and let's hope they do have the systems up and running," he adds.