Thousands of passengers evacuated from London Gatwick Airport due to 'fire alarm being activated' - dozens of flights delayed

Those inside the terminal were ordered to leave the airport at approximately 11am after the alarm sounded in the North Terminal departure lounge.

Passengers had to stand outside while they waited for further updates, before being allowed to return to the airport after a 20 minute wait.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 reported dozens of delayed flights at Gatwick today, although not all were linked to the alarm.

FlightRadar24 showed 32 departures listed as delayed, while a further seven have been grounded.

A Gatwick Airport spokesperson said: “London Gatwick's North Terminal departure lounge was evacuated for a short time this morning due to a fire alarm being activated.

“As always, safety and security are our number one priority. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience.”

The airport has been hit by a number of issues in recent weeks. An outbreak of Covid among air traffic control staff lead to a number of flight cancellations and thousands of passengers facing delays last week.

Another shortage of air traffic controllers meant flights at Gatwick Airport were cancelled, delayed or diverted at short notice on Thursday, September 14.

This incident came just weeks after the UK's air traffic control system was hit by a network failure on August Bank Holiday Monday.