A handful of flights departing from Iceland were canceled or delayed following the full airport shut down at Gatwick in England, RÚV reports. The shutdown is the result of drone sightings around the Gatwick airfield, in what one airport tweet referred to as “a deliberate attempt to disrupt flights.”
Gatwick was first closed just after 9:00 PM on Wednesday night after two drones were sighted flying over the airfield. The airport reopened just after 3:00 AM on Friday morning, only to close again about 40 minutes later after further drone sightings.
It’s estimated that the shutdown affected 110,000 passengers scheduled to depart from Gatwick on Thursday, as well as a significant number of passengers on flights that were scheduled to arrive from other airports, such as Iceland’s Keflavík airport. Icelandair, for instance, had to cancel a flight that was scheduled to depart on Thursday at 7:45 AM and delayed a later flight that was meant to depart for Gatwick at 3:25 PM. WOW Air and Easy Jet also had to cancel or delay flights.
As of 5:00 PM on Thursday, Gatwick remained closed.
