Passengers forced to evacuate Gatwick on busy Friday

KentOnline / KMTV

Transcript

00:00First this evening, flights cancelled and delayed at Kent's closest airport after a

00:04bomb disposal team was called in for a suspected prohibited item.

00:08Thousands were evacuated from Gatwick's airport's south terminal as a precaution earlier today.

00:13Well, the airport says the safety and security of its passengers and staff is its top priority

00:19and urges people to contact their airline as it now deals with the backlog.

00:23Abbey Hooke is there at the scene now.

00:25Abbey, a dramatic day at the airport, now everything is back up and running.

00:29What's the latest you can tell us?

00:31Well, Bartholomew, there's a lot of work to do for Gatwick now that many have missed their

00:37flights because of cancellations and delays today and into this evening as well.

00:41The airport hopefully not affecting this weekend as well.

00:44I'm no avid plane spotter myself, but as I've been standing here for the past couple of

00:47hours or so, it seems business as usual on the runway behind me, but it was behind that

00:52in the south terminal today where hundreds, if not thousands, were left outside, waiting

00:58outside in the cold.

00:59And of course, it is the UK's second busiest airport as well, so a lot of people hoping

01:04to get away on what have been a nice winter break, get away from this cold weather here

01:08in the UK.

01:09And people will be pleased to know in Kent as well that the train station at Gatwick

01:13has now reopened, a relief to a lot of those who use that as their main way to get into

01:17one of the closest, largest airports as well.

01:20Inside south terminal, it's still incredibly busy.

01:24The public, including us journalists, have been told to stay away, to come elsewhere.

01:29That's why I'm here next to the runway here, because it is so busy trying to get those

01:32hundreds, thousands back to their flights or replacement flights.

01:36And to recap why, well it was at 8.20am this morning where police were called because of

01:40a suspected prohibited item in luggage.

01:44As a precaution, an explosive ordnance disposal team was called in and then the south terminal

01:49was evacuated a couple of hours later, about 10.55 this morning.

01:53But the latest we've heard from Gatwick Airport, this was about 2.40pm this afternoon, so a

01:57couple of hours ago now, they said the earlier security alert has now been resolved and cleared

02:02by police.

02:03Trains will also start calling at Gatwick Airport, as I said.

02:06They thanked everyone for their patience and understanding as well, and said there are

02:10of course, as we know, some delays and cancellations to flights, but you should contact your airline

02:14for any, contact your airline if you're concerned about your flight.

02:18We have heard from some airlines, EasyJet for example, they've diverted their flights

02:22to the north terminal, where they usually operate from anyway.

02:26And in terms of the scale of this today, do you know how many people have actually

02:29been affected?

02:30Well, that's the key question that we'll be hoping to answer in the coming days as well,

02:36but what we do know is that around 300 flights were meant to land at Gatwick today and another

02:41300 meant to take off.

02:42That's across both terminals and a total of more than 120,000 passengers.

02:48Now that is across the north and the south terminal.

02:50We do know this incident today was just isolated to that one terminal, the south terminal.

02:55So we don't exactly know how many people would have been impacted and when those replacement

02:59flights are put in place and those delays are caught up with as well, just what this

03:03backlog could do over the weekend as well.

03:05But for those hundreds who had to wait outside the terminal today in the cold, not much warmer

03:08than it is for me now, about four degrees here in Crawley.

03:12They were given bottled water, foils, blankets and hand warmers as well, plenty of them standing

03:18outside in that cold weather as well.

03:21The advice is, and I've probably never said this with such pertinence before, to check

03:25before you travel.

03:26Although hopefully it's a smoother ride now that planes are continuing to take off as

03:30you can see in here there.

03:32This weekend the airport are hoping it will run nice and smoothly and it's key to get

03:37in touch with your airline if you have any concerns.

03:39Yeah, hopefully for all of those travellers everything can get back to normal by the end

03:43of the weekend.

03:44Thank you very much for those details, Abby.

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