Rail ticket rules relaxed for Gatwick passengers hit by flight disruption
Train ticket restrictions have been relaxed for passengers affected by the air traffic control disruption at Gatwick.
Passengers travelling on National Rail services – including Southern, Gatwick Express and Thameslink – will be able to use existing tickets if they are arriving back in the UK or departing at a different time than originally planned.
The arrangement applies to tickets dated for Tuesday, September 8, or Wednesday, September 9, where the ticket can be used on the new date of the rescheduled flight.
Passengers must show a valid airline ticket or cancellation/amendment notification if requested during an inspection.
Passengers can also claim fee-free refunds within 28 days of the date of travel if they abandoned their train journey or had to buy a new ticket to or from a different airport because their flight was diverted.
A spokesperson for GTR said: "Ticket rules have been relaxed across the National Rail network to support passengers who have been affected by air traffic control disruption this week.
"We want to help people get to where they need to be without additional worry."
Passengers have described being left stranded, without luggage and facing hours-long delays after a technical issue with the UK's air traffic control system caused widespread disruption at Gatwick.
Flights have now resumed from the airport but Gatwick warned, on Wednesday morning (September 9), that it would take time for operations to fully return to normal.
The problems began on Tuesday when National Air Traffic Services (NATS) reported a technical issue affecting its flight processing system.
NATS said it implemented a fix during the afternoon and later confirmed the system issue had been resolved.
However, NATS warned that recovering from the incident would take time because of the knock-on effects across the aviation network.
At 10.15pm, NATS said: “Work is continuing to assist airlines and airports recover from today's disruption.”
It described the recovery as ‘very complex’ and said it had ‘created difficulties for the whole aviation network’.
NATS said: “We apologise again for the disruption caused.”
It advised passengers to check with their airline for the status of flights that night and the following day.
At 6.45am on Wednesday, Gatwick Airport confirmed that flights had resumed.
It warned, however: “We still anticipate that it will take time for our operations to fully return to normal.”
Passengers were told to continue checking with their airlines for the latest information.