A water supply failure struck Gatwick Airport on Sunday morning, leaving passengers at one of Europe's busiest aviation hubs without access to working toilets and unable to order so much as a glass of water at any bar or restaurant across the site.
The outage affected both the North Terminal and the South Terminal simultaneously. Gatwick handles roughly 46 million passengers annually, and July 26 fell inside the first full weekend of the British school summer holiday window.
Bars and restaurants across both terminals suspended drink service entirely. Toilet facilities were confirmed non-operational. The airport did not issue a public timeline for restoration as of Sunday afternoon, according to reporting by The Guardian.
A spokesperson statement had not been published to the airport's official channels by the time this item was filed.
Gatwick's South Terminal alone contains outlets including Wetherspoon, Pret A Manger, and Wagamama, all of which require a functioning water supply as a baseline condition of operation. The North Terminal's departures level runs a comparable density of food and drink retail. Neither was serving.
The airport bills itself as “London's second airport.” On Sunday it was also London's largest building without a working bathroom.