Holidaymakers evacuated from Gatwick Airport in fire alarm chaos

Travellers had to be evacuated from Gatwick Airport this morning after the fire alarm went off.

Footage posted online showed a bell ringing loudly as crowds of passengers walked out, with a tannoy announcement saying ‘Evacuate the area immediately’.

Passengers were outside the departure lounge for up to half an hour, until the airport could be sure there was no fire.

Emma Harckham, 30, was waiting to board a flight to Antigua for a business trip for her job in marketing when the alarm went off.

She told Metro: ‘Everyone seemed very confused at first. Nobody really moved until the staff at the restaurants and coffee shops started leaving through emergency exits.

‘There was no-one giving information. It very much was a ‘see a big crowd moving so go where they’re going’, which if it was a real emergency wouldn’t have been ideal.’

After waiting in an outdoor smoking area for around 20 minutes, she said she queued for some ten more minutes to go back into the departure lounge, and walked past someone asking a manager or security person, ‘Was there a fire in the end?’

‘She just looked tired and said “there never is”,’ Emma, who moved to the UK from New York twelve years ago, said.

As she had already gone through immigration, she did not need to show her passport again to get back inside.

But she saw a ‘huge’ queue of travellers who weren’t so lucky and still needed to pass security, she said.

‘The board didn’t show too many delayed flights that I saw as I walked to my gate, but I’d imagine it must’ve at least put a stress on things,’ she added.

In a video she shared of the incident, one traveller can be heard saying ‘I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re going somewhere!’

It came on the first day of June, when many holidaymakers will have been off on the start of a summer break.

Another traveller criticised the response to what could have been an emergency, writing on X: ‘Train your staff for fire alarms. Customers asking where to go when fire alarm went off and multiple staff had no idea???????’

A London Gatwick spokesperson told Metro in a statement: ‘London Gatwick’s South Terminal Departure Lounge was evacuated for a short time this morning due to a fire alarm activation.

‘Our dedicated Airport Fire Service swiftly attended and confirmed there was no fire.

‘Passengers were allowed back into the Departure Lounge shortly after.

‘Safety and security are our top priority and we resolved the situation as quickly as possible.’

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