A British Airways flight from Santiago, Chile, was due to land at Heathrow at 10am on Saturday. It touched down at 9pm — an 11-hour delay that captured the scale of the chaos wrought by violent thunderstorms sweeping across southern England.
More than 1,000 flights were disrupted at the UK's two busiest airports over the weekend, as sweltering heatwave conditions gave way to storms that forced air traffic controllers to impose temporary restrictions and left passengers stranded.
“Over 1,000 flights delayed and 200 cancelled at Heathrow and Gatwick as thunderstorms follow heatwave.”
According to Flightradar24, over 400 flights at Gatwick were delayed on Saturday and a further 600 stalled at Heathrow. More than 200 flights across both airports were cancelled. FlightAware put the toll even higher: 377 delays at Heathrow and 399 at Gatwick.
Eurocontrol, the European aviation agency, said Heathrow and Gatwick were the only UK airports suffering 'heavy' delays due to the thunderstorms. Flights must avoid a broad area of hot, unstable air stretching from northern Spain to southern Sweden, it added.
The disruption rolled into Sunday. At Gatwick, easyJet cancelled flights to Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Belfast and Nice. At Heathrow, British Airways axed services to Toulouse, Rome, Amsterdam and Milan.
Gatwick blamed the 'ongoing thunderstorms across the network'. In a statement, the airport said: 'Due to ongoing thunderstorms across the network last night, temporary air traffic restrictions were put in place, which resulted in some flights being delayed and cancelled this morning.'
EasyJet said it was 'doing all possible to minimise the impact'. A spokesperson added: 'Due to thunderstorms in the south of the UK which is restricting the number of arrivals and departures today, like other airlines we are experiencing some disruption... we have had to pre-emptively cancel some flights to and from Gatwick in advance. We are notifying passengers in advance with their options to rebook or receive a refund as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required.'
The storms have caused damage on the ground too. A home in Crawley was hit by a lightning strike, while a roof in Streatham, south London, was destroyed in a blaze sparked by an overnight bolt.
The amber weather warning for extreme heat — which had seen temperatures hit 33C — has been extended again, with the hot weather set to linger over London, the South East and East Anglia until 9pm Monday. But the Met Office warned that further thunderstorms are still possible. Its forecast for Gatwick on Sunday predicted 'cloudy with showers' and a chance of further disturbance.
Air traffic control said disruption was expected to continue through the rest of Sunday, but there remained a 'large degree of uncertainty' over exactly where storms would develop. Passengers were advised to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.