Published on : Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Gatwick Airport would like to extend its sincere apologies to all passengers who were affected by the disruptions on Christmas Eve.
Extraordinarily adverse weather across the region, including exceptionally heavy rain caused all local waterways around Gatwick Airport to flood. The flood waters significantly exceeded flood impact projections and resulted in significant damage to electrical substations and switch rooms which caused the partial loss of power to the North Terminal. Since then all efforts have been focussed on restoring the North Terminal to its full operation. A full schedule of flights operated on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and every day since.
Since change of ownership Gatwick has invested significantly in improving the airport spending £1bn in the last four years. We have invested over £12m on improving the flood defences. Gatwick has made a £4m investment in the Environment Agency’s Upper Mole Flood Alleviation Scheme and is currently building an additional on-site flood resilience scheme costing over £8m. Since Tuesday a number of short term measures have been put in place to reduce the risk of such incidents happening again. In addition a full review will be undertaken headed up by David McMillan the former Director General of Eurocontrol and a non-executive Director of Gatwick Airport. His report and recommendations will be published in February 2014.
On Christmas Eve some flights were cancelled and others were subject to significant delays causing considerable inconvenience for passengers. London Gatwick worked with our airport partners and called in extra staff throughout the day to help support passengers and to assist in managing an extremely difficult and evolving situation ensuring that 414 of the 535 scheduled flights departed and arrived safely.
Stewart Wingate, London Gatwick Chief Executive, said: “We appreciate that lots of our passengers were travelling to be with their families over the festive period and we are sorry that flights were cancelled and passengers left disappointed, particularly at this time of the year.”
With this in mind London Gatwick will be offering £100 of high street vouchers to each passenger whose flight was cancelled on Christmas Eve as a gesture of goodwill in recognition of the exceptionally difficult circumstances.
Source:- Gatwick Airport
Tags: Airline News
|
||
   
|
||
