Passengers forced to evacuate Gatwick on busy Friday
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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.