Gatwick drone chaos cost easyJet £15m in lost ticket sales and passenger help, airline reveals

An EasyJet plane lands at Gatwick airport, which was closed for three days after drones were spotted over the airfield (Picture: PA)

The chaotic shutdown of Gatwick airport following sightings of drones last month cost Britain’s biggest airline easyJet £15 million, its boss revealed today.

The carrier told shareholders that the hit from lost ticket sales was around £5 million, while a further £10 million was spent on the “welfare costs” of helping stranded airport passengers.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said he was “disappointed” by the slow response to the unprecedented incident and described it as a “wake-up call” to airport operators all over the world.

Around 82,000 of its customers were affected and more than 400 easyJet flights cancelled during the closure of Britain’s second biggest airport just before Christmas.

EasyJet accounts for around 40 per cent of flights at Gatwick so the scale of its losses suggest that the total bill for airlines and the airport could be close to £50 million.

The airport remained closed over a 36-hour period spread out over three days after reports of drones close to the runway that could have threatened the safety of jets as they arrived and took off.

In total around 1,000 flights were grounded, affecting 140,000 passengers.

Mr Lundgren said the airline — Gatwick’s biggest customer — was in “conversation” with the owners of the West Sussex airport about possible compensation for the losses.

He said that “it took a long time to resolve and to get the equipment in place — we were disappointed it took such a long time” and warned it was “likely to happen again”.

He added: “It would be wrong of me to guarantee it won’t happen ever again — this has been a wake up call for a lot of airport operators to put in place sufficient plans and procedures to deal with this thing. I think Gatwick will be better prepared.”

A police inquiry into the drone incident continues.

EasyJet said that its passenger numbers during the last quarter of last year continued to rise despite the drone disruption.

The number of passengers was up 15 per cent at 21.6 million, while revenues rose 13.7 per cent to almost £1.3 billion.

It added: “Despite the consumer and economic uncertainty created by Brexit, demand currently remains solid and forward bookings for the period after March 29 are robust."