Gatwick digital information screens 'back up and running' after whiteboard chaos

Digital flight departure screens at Gatwick are "displaying information as normal" after a technical glitch sparked chaos at the London airport.

Staff were today forced to write out flight information on whiteboards following the IT issue, caused by a damaged fibre cable.

A spokeswoman for Vodafone, which provides IT at Gatwick, said its engineers have fixed the broken cable.

Information screens at the airport are now "back up and running", an airport spokesman told the Standard.

Airport workers resorted to manually writing out crucial information such as gate numbers for each departure from the UK's second busiest airport on Monday.

Some passengers missed their flights due to the issue, which began at around 7am.

August is one of the busiest periods of the year for airports as many families embark on summer holidays.

People were advised to use the temporary flight boards in departure lounges or to listen for airline flight announcements.

The airport apologised to passengers and said in a statement that "tens of thousands of passengers have departed on time".

Ayla Herbert, 26, from Penryn, Cornwall, was at the airport for a Flybe flight to Newquay when she encountered a crowd gathered around two whiteboards after passing through security.

She told the Press Association: "Each flight was written down, flight number, time of departure, time of when boarding would be announced and eventually the gate number.

"This crowd over the hours grew larger and larger. Being in the entrance way of the departures it got incredibly busy, people were agitated, yelling for them to tell them their flight info and to get more boards for the South Terminal.

"This was never done. The guys did well keeping everyone updated, but it was hard to see if you weren't close to the board. They used megaphones to tell everyone of updated information."

A spokesman for Gatwick said: “The issue with Gatwick’s digital screens has been resolved and flight information is being displayed as normal.

"The airport’s manual contingency plan – which included displaying information manually in the terminals and having extra staff on hand to help direct passengers – worked well and tens of thousands of passengers departed on time and no flights were cancelled.

"Gatwick would like to apologise to any passengers who were inconvenienced by this issue.”