Monday 20 August 2018 4:42 pm | Updated: Friday 24 May 2019 7:47 pm

Back to school: Gatwick Airport displays flight information on whiteboards following IT glitch

Gatwick Airport was forced to use whiteboards to relay information to passengers about their flights after an IT glitch caused its computer systems to break down yesterday.

Passengers travelling at the UK's second biggest airport were hit with the problem from about 4.30am yesterday morning, although Gatwick was keen to point out that the IT failures did not cause any passengers to miss their flights.

We are sorry, but due to an IT issue our flight information is not displaying correctly. Please use the temporary flight boards in the departure lounges or listen for airline flight announcements. We are expecting to resolve the issue soon and apologise for the inconvenience.

— London Gatwick LGW (@Gatwick_Airport) August 20, 2018

Due to damage to a Vodafone fibre optic cable, we are continuing to display our flight info manually. Contingencies are working – we have whiteboards and friendly staff on hand to help, and tens of thousands of passengers have departed on time. Apologies for any inconvenience.

— London Gatwick LGW (@Gatwick_Airport) August 20, 2018

The problem was thought to be caused by damaged cables operated by Vodafone, which was resolved during the afternoon, with services slowly back up nd running at about 4pm.

Frustrated passengers tweeted images of chaotic scenes in which customers clambered to get a view of their flight details on whiteboards placed in the departure lounges: