Uk weather: Lightning strike causes Gatwick delays

Some passengers were forced to wait two hours to collect their bags

The proposals could increase Gatwick’s capacity to 82 million passengers each year (PA)

A lightning strike caused delays for hundreds of passengers at Gatwick Airport on Saturday, with some people having to wait two hours to collect their bags.

There was a power dip in the local area when the lightning struck in the early hours of the morning, causing electrical trips to the airport's systems.

Check-in and baggage were affected, and although all issues have been resolved and the airport is now operating as normal, passengers were subject to delays.

"We try and get bags out to people within 55 minutes of them landing, and there's been seven flights where they've had to wait more than 55 minutes, so we record that as over our target," a Gatwick spokeswoman said.

People on two flights had to wait for two hours, which she said is "much longer than we would want".

As of 7.45am, out of 75 flights, there were two delays over an hour and 12 delays over 20 minutes.

The longest delay was one hour 39 minutes.

In a statement, the airport said: "Due to a lightning strike in the early hours of this morning there was a power dip in the local area.

"As a result there were numerous electrical trips to Gatwick's systems, including check-in and baggage.

"We recovered all systems quickly but due to the volume of passengers this morning we have been focusing on clearing the backlog of bags as quickly as possible to get passengers away on their flights."

Additional reporting by Press Association