Passengers at Gatwick Airport were left without running water for more than eight hours on Saturday, with toilets unusable, drinking fountains dry, and cafes unable to serve hot drinks. The outage, which hit both terminals at the UK’s second busiest airport, sparked long queues for the few available facilities and furious complaints about a lack of communication from airport staff.
Charlotte Anstey, travelling from Gatwick to Spain, told Metro she discovered the problem from a restaurant employee, not from any airport announcement. ‘The worst part of this is the lack of access to toilet facilities. There are guards blocking off access to toilets, and very poor communication on the ground,’ she said. ‘If I’d known, I would not have gone through security.’
“Gatwick Airport suffered an eight-hour water outage leaving toilets unusable and passengers without drinking water.”
Flights were unaffected, but passengers described scenes of confusion and frustration. TalkTV presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer posted on X at 10.42am, well before the airport’s first statement, warning that there was no running water anywhere. ‘Gatwick hasn’t bothered to make a public announcement about this to passengers. How helpful…’ she wrote.
In a statement shared on X just before 11am, a Gatwick spokesperson said: ‘A water issue in the Horley area is causing disruption at the airport this morning. The problem is affecting water supply in both terminals and is currently under investigation. Bottled water is being made available to passengers and staff across the airport and other contingency measures are being put in place.’ But Anstey said she saw no sign of the promised bottled water.
The outage was caused by a problem at the Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, run by Sutton and East Surrey Water, which serves residents across Surrey, West Sussex, Kent and South London. Some social media users called for the airport – which handles around 46 million passengers a year – to close until the issue was resolved.
Water supply was finally restored in the evening, ending a disruption that left thousands of travellers struggling without basic facilities on one of the busiest travel days of the summer.
