Gatwick Airport Water Outage Ends After Toilets and Restaurants Forced to Close

Water supplies have been restored at Gatwick Airport following a day-long disruption that shut toilets, drinking fountains and food outlets across both terminals. Flights continued operating, but passengers faced queues, limited refreshments and complaints about poor communication.

Water has returned to most of Gatwick Airport after a power failure at a regional treatment works disrupted supplies for more than 16 hours on Sunday, 26 July.

The Gatwick Airport water outage affected the North and South terminals, leaving many toilets unable to flush and handwashing facilities with little or no pressure.

Restaurants, cafés and bars closed or restricted their services, while water fountains and hot-drink machines were also unavailable. Flights were not disrupted by the loss of supply.

SES Water confirmed at 10.40pm that supplies had been restored following the failure at its Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, near Edenbridge.

The company apologised to customers and partners, including Gatwick, and warned that slower flows or temporary water discolouration could occur while the network returned to normal.

Treatment Works Restarted Hours Before Water Returned

The official timeline shows why the disruption continued long after engineers restarted the plant.

SES Water first reported an issue at Bough Beech at 6am. At 1pm, it said complications caused by the power outage were producing low pressure or a complete loss of supply for some customers.

The treatment works was operating again by 2pm, but the company still had to treat the water and rebuild supplies across the network. Water began gradually returning to affected customers, including Gatwick, by 5.55pm before full restoration was announced late that evening.

The outage also affected homes and businesses beyond the airport. SES Water listed TN8 and parts of the RH1, RH6, RH7, RH8, RH9 and RH10 postcode areas among those experiencing low pressure or no water.

Passengers Report Queues and Closed Facilities

Gatwick distributed bottled water and deployed additional staff as the disruption continued. However, some passengers told reporters they had not seen the supplies or received clear information about where water was available.

Travellers described long toilet queues, closed restaurants and difficulty finding hot drinks or refilling bottles.

Vanessa Brown-Ofoedu, who was travelling to Palma, told Sky News there had been a “massive queue” for toilets and that conditions were beginning to smell of sewage.

Another passenger, Nick Hollings, described the situation as “chaos” after struggling to access a toilet.

Although many catering businesses shut, some shops continued selling packaged food. Passenger accounts also highlighted a shortage of available seating because customers could not use tables inside closed restaurants and cafés.

By Sunday evening, Gatwick said water had returned to the vast majority of its campus and most toilets had reopened.

The airport expected the remaining toilets and food and drink outlets to be operating for the first flights on Monday, 27 July. It said every scheduled flight had departed despite the disruption.

SES Water’s restoration notice remains the latest confirmed official position. The company has not yet published a detailed explanation of what caused the power failure or whether further measures will be introduced at the treatment works.