Heathrow Airport resorts to whiteboards after flight information screens fail

Information screens at Heathrow Airport failed on Thursday morning.

Staff at the UK’s busiest airport resorted to writing flight updates on whiteboards.

Passengers were asked to use phones or tablets if possible to find out which gate their flight was leaving from.

Extra staff were deployed in terminals to help people get where they needed to go.

A screen failure at Gatwick Airport last month saw crowds of passengers congregating around whiteboards for updates.

Some people missed their flights due to the issue at the West Sussex airport, which was caused by a damaged fibre optic cable.

Heathrow posted a message on Twitter at 7am stating: “Our flight information screens are inactive this morning.”

Passenger Legio Patria Nostra wrote: “Absolute joke at Heathrow. All screens down. Just landed from Abu Dhabi after three months away working. Ground staff don’t have a clue and can’t tell me what gate my flight to Glasgow is.”

The airport issued a statement at 9am which said the situation had been resolved.

It read: “A connection issue temporarily affected some of our flight information screens at Heathrow this morning.

“Our teams worked quickly to resolve the issue and screens are now working as normal.

“Heathrow colleagues will remain on hand to help passengers if needed. We apologise for any inconvenience caused this morning.”

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