Water supply failure disrupts Gatwick, closing toilets and restaurants

Gatwick Airport faced a day of disruption after a water supply failure shut toilets, closed restaurants and bars, and left hand-washing facilities out of use across both terminals at one of the UK’s busiest airports. Passengers were given bottled water while the airport tried to manage the fallout, and flights were unaffected.

The problem affected both the North Terminal and the South Terminal, with toilets unable to flush and some passengers unable to get hot drinks, fill bottles or use drinking fountains. Several food and drink outlets closed as the water shortage spread through terminal services, turning a basic utility failure into a wider passenger-management problem at the West Sussex airport.

The outage was linked to a power failure at a water treatment plant in south east England. Gatwick said later in the day that it was starting to see its water supply return, after passengers had faced long queues for toilets and closures across restaurants and bars. The airport apologised for the disruption and continued distributing bottled water while services recovered.

Gatwick has been hit before by local water infrastructure failures. In July 2022, a burst water main in Shipley Bridge, Horley, Surrey, reduced supplies around the airport, leaving 100 properties without water and another 1,200 with low pressure in Horley.