THE parents of Hannah Maxwell-Jones are hoping the disruption to transatlantic flights does not delay her long-awaited operation.

Two-year-old Hannah, accompanied by her parents, Allison and Keith Maxwell-Jones, is due to fly to the American city of Little Rock, Arkansas in ten days time.

The little girl from Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, who was born with a badly deformed face, is booked in to have pioneering surgery at a world-renowned plastic surgery unit.

Readers of The Northern Echo rallied around to help raise more than £55,000 to cover the costs of what is likely to be a series of operations in the United States.

But the dramatic events in New York and Washington have placed a question mark over the family's travel arrangements.

"At this stage we don't know what is going to happen," said Allison, who works as an intensive care nurse at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

"But there is no point in worrying about it, as long as flights are available we will be able to get there," she added.