Everything we know about Gatwick disruption so far as runway closes

Everything we know about Gatwick disruption so far as runway closes. Simon Calder reports.Sky News

Transcript

00:00Right. Well, the first thing is everyone is safe and well, which of course is the most important thing.

00:05But let me talk you through this.

00:06So the British Airways flight 2279 from Gatwick to Vancouver was all set to go. It accelerated down the runway.

00:14There was an issue. I'm hearing that the brakes overheated, the takeoff was abandoned,

00:21and as a result of that, the aircraft was then squarely in the middle of the runway at the world's busiest

00:28single runway airport. The fire crews came and attended. Everybody was safe.

00:33But it meant that this incredibly busy runway on what is the busiest day of the year so far was closed.

00:42And I'm trying to establish how long for. I think it was 45 minutes or so.

00:46During that time, we had a dozen different diversions at least.

00:51They included flights from EasyJet going off to Luton, a couple of flights to Stansted,

00:57one to Bournemouth, and then the Airbus A380 Superjumbo, an Emirates flight coming in from Dubai,

01:04is currently on the ground in Brussels. It landed there after it had been circling for a while near Gatwick.

01:11They gave up. They will presumably refuel.

01:15I've just heard from a passenger who sat on the ground at Heathrow. Her British Airways flight came in from Malaga.

01:22They eventually diverted to Heathrow.

01:24They've been told they can't get off there and instead they will have to wait around until they can find a slot to take off from Heathrow

01:31and another one to land at Gatwick. Cancellations on top of cancellations have already begun because it was a pretty grim day already.

01:41We had a number of cancellations, particularly on EasyJet, some on Wizz Air as well.

01:46And because aircraft, crew, passengers are now in the wrong places,

01:52I'm afraid we will see certainly some very heavy delays and quite possibly some more cancellations as the day wears on.