Services at Gatwick are still being affected after the airport was forced to close its runway for several hours on Monday afternoon due to the emergency landing of a Virgin Atlantic aircraft.
Virgin flight VS043, which was flying from Gatwick to Las Vegas, was forced to turn around over south-west England after developing a problem with its landing gear.
After flying around southern England for several hours to burn fuel, the aircraft was able to land safely back at Gatwick with no injuries to its 462 passengers and crew at just before 16.00 on Monday.
The runway was closed for several hours because of the incident and did not reopen until just after 19.00 last night. This meant that some flights were cancelled and inbound aircraft were also diverted to other UK airports.
Gatwick said in a statement today: “The airport is open and operating normally, however, there are some knock-on delays and cancellations due to yesterday's incident.
“We advise passengers to check with their airline for information on their flight status.”
Virgin Atlantic CEO Craig Kreeger travelled to Gatwick to meet passengers and crew after they had safely disembarked from the Boeing 747.
“I understand that this will have been a very upsetting situation for the customers involved, and for their friends and family, and will have significantly disrupted people’s holiday plans,” said Kreeger.
“I would like to thank all of the Virgin Atlantic crew and colleagues, who responded with the absolute professionalism and care for our customers that we would expect.”