easyJet cancels all Gatwick flights over drone scare

BRITISH airline easyJet cancelled all its Gatwick flights on Thursday, including two to Cyprus, after drones flying near the airport grounded flights.

The airline said the disruption was expected to continue into Friday.

“At this stage, there is no indication of when the airport might re-open and as a result we have cancelled all flights due to operate to or from London Gatwick today (Thursday),” easyJet said in a statement.

“We expect disruption to continue into tomorrow (Friday).”

At least two easyJet flights from Gatwick to Cyprus were affected. One was to Paphos airport, which had been due to arrive at 1.40pm, the other to Larnaca scheduled to land at 7.35pm.

Thousands remained stranded at Gatwick airport after it was closed when two drones were spotted flying over the airfield on Wednesday and one was also seen on Thursday.

One of the stuck passengers, Andri Kyprianou from Cyprus, told a British newspaper she saw a pregnant woman sleeping on the floor and passengers with infants spending the night in the “freezing” South Terminal.

She said she got to the airport at 12.30am for a 3am flight to Cyprus via Kiev, only to find it had been cancelled and the next connection to Kiev is on Sunday.

She said: “I haven’t slept since yesterday morning, we are very tired. It’s freezing, we are cold, having to wear all of these coats for extra blankets.

“There were pregnant women, one of them was sleeping on the floor. There were people with small babies in here overnight, we saw disabled people on chairs.”

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.