Queue chaos at Gatwick after power cut in South Terminal closed airport’s train station and left passengers facing long wait to board carriages
- Station was closed for nearly an hour as engineers worked to fix the outage
- Footage emerged today of long, snaking lines at the airport’s Departures area
- Passengers claimed they were stuck in queues ‘as long as the one for the Queen’
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Hundreds of frustrated passengers were stuck in queues ‘as long as the one for the Queen’ today after a power cut at the airport’s train station.
Footage emerged this afternoon of long, snaking lines of travellers in Departures following the outage, which lasted for around an hour.
The station was closed for that period as bosses urged customers to allow extra time for their journeys.
Passengers racing to make their flights took to social media to express frustration at the delays.
Hundreds of frustrated passengers were stuck in queues ‘as long as the one for the Queen’ today after a power cut at the airport’s train station
Footage emerged this afternoon of long, snaking lines of travellers in Departures following the outage, which lasted for around an hour
One wrote: ‘Power cut at Gatwick train station – been stuck for almost an hour now. Welcome back home.’
Another said: ‘@SouthernRailUK how are you guys reporting NOTHING about the power issues at Gatwick?! The queue for the train is as long as the one for the Queen, but not a single word or advice from you.’
A third added: ‘Passengers trying to get trains from @Gatwick_Airport to London Bridge via @TLRailUK. There is no power and large queues building up.’
The airport tweeted at 12.10pm to explain that the station was closed due to a power outage and that it was working with UK Power Networks (UKPN) to fix the problem.
It posted another message at 12.43pm with an update, which read: ‘Power has been restored and the train station has now re-opened to passengers.’
A spokesman for UKPN added: ‘We apologise to customers for any disruption caused by a power interruption in the Gatwick area.
‘UK Power Networks engineers worked quickly to restore power to 50 customers after a fault on the network interrupted supplies at 11.05am. All supplies were restored by 11.45am.’
It came as analysis of data from the Office of Rail and Road today showed train reliability in Britain reached the worst level on record.
The industry’s cancellations score during the 12 months to August 20 was 3.7%, – the poorest reliability in records dating back to 2015.
Govia Thameslink Railway – which consists of Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express services – recorded its second worst cancellations score of 11.1%.
A spokesman for industry body the Rail Delivery Group said: ‘We know that reliability and punctuality are the most important areas for improvement for our passengers and apologise to all those who have experienced disruption to their travel plans.
‘We need to end the unnecessary and damaging strikes called by the leaders of the transport unions which disrupt passengers’ plans, undermine struggling businesses and upend the industry’s recovery.
‘They are opposing the very reforms that will improve reliability and punctuality and therefore help build a sustainable railway.’
Gatwick Airport has been approached for further comment.
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