Gatwick; Weather And Power Cut Delays Passengers

16 October 2013, 14:12

Early-morning fog and a lunch-time power cut at one of the UK's busiest airports has caused travel chaos for thousands of air travellers.

The fog led to delays and some cancellations at Heathrow, London City and Gatwick airports, with British Airways among airlines affected.

Then, around 1pm, a power outage caused an effective shutdown of the south terminal at Gatwick, with departing passengers struggling with check-in and bags and those arriving stuck on planes.

Passengers took to Twitter to tell of their difficulties.

Lance Price tweeted: "Chaos at Gatwick. Water got into the electrics, power out and no flights going anywhere. Announcements via megaphone and a whiteboard!''

Another tweet, from Sandy Holford, said: "Complete bedlam at Gatwick, almost all systems down and those that are up show the wrong info.''

Ian Graham said: "Just back from Croatia and stuck on plane due to flooding and power cut at Gatwick.''

Adrian Simpson said: "You can add rain to the list of things that @Gatwick_Airport can't handle. Stuck in plane with airport flooded and no power. Fun.''

Later, Scott Appleton tweeted: "Chaos @Gatwick_Airport seemingly resolved. Power back up. But no departure info/ communication. Where's the crisis planner?!''

The power problem followed long delays for easyJet passengers at Gatwick, and elsewhere, yesterday caused by a Europe-wide failure of the airline's computer system, with passengers having to be checked in manually.

Of today's incident, Gatwick said: "We are currently experiencing a power outage affecting some operational systems in the south terminal. Unfortunately this is causing some delays for passengers and we apologise for any inconvenience this is causing.

"We are working to fix the problem and looking at what contingencies we can put in place in the meantime to minimise disruption.

"We advise all passengers scheduled to fly out of the south terminal today to check the status of the flight with their airline first and check the flight information on our website. We are also advising passengers to expect some delays.''