Gatwick Express cancelled train service to airport wrecks hundreds of travel plans

Hundreds of holidaymakers had their journey plans jeopardised or wrecked when the Gatwick Express train service delayed their arrival at the airport by nearly 90 minutes.

The non-stop train from London Victoria normally runs four times an hour, taking around 30 minutes. Early on Sunday mornings, though, departures are only half-hourly– making it crucial that trains run as scheduled.

But the 6.30am service on 5 August was cancelled “because of a short-notice crew shortage,” according to Gatwick Express. The operator is part of the much-criticised Govia Thameslink franchise.

Passengers who had just missed the 6am train were then told to board the 7am for what was scheduled to be a 37-minute journey.

But about 10 minutes into the run, the train was misrouted by a signalling error at Balham onto the slow line. Normally this would not be a problem, because it would simply be routed back to the fast line. But the tracks were blocked between Selhurst and East Croydon by engineering work.

To make matters worse, another train was sent along the slow line, preventing the Gatwick Express from reversing to Balham.

The Independent is trying to establish why it could not have been routed back to the fast line at a different point, for example Streatham.

Passengers had to sit and watch as a succession of trains for Gatwick, which had left London Victoria after them, race past on the fast line.

As tension increased and tempers frayed inside the stationary train, several passengers set off emergency alarms, adding to the delay.

One passenger, Jacob Neville, tweeted: “Spectacular f***-up by Gatwick Express the signaller has forgotten to redirect the train to avoid rail works and now a train full of people are probably going to be missing their flights…”

The train eventually reached Gatwick 57 minutes late, at 8.34am.

For those who had tried to travel on the 6.30am train, due to arrive at 7.06am, the delay was almost 90 minutes.

One of the passengers on board was Michael Punter, who was with his family trying to catch the 9.05am easyJet flight to Rome in order to join a cruise.

He later tweeted: “We missed our flight today and thus the departure for our cruise due to a ‘boo boo’ by the signallers sending our train (Gatwick express) onto the wrong line!”

Twenty-four hours later, he reported that he had managed to catch up with the ship by travelling to Heathrow, flying to Nice and taking a train to Cannes – all at his expense.

Two teenagers who were booked on the only flight of the week from Gatwick to Tobago missed the check-in deadline – only to see their plane’s departure delayed by 23 minutes.

The mother of one of them said: “It’s too heartbreaking as they’d saved all year for their trip and paid for it themselves.”

A spokesperson for the train operator said: “We are very sorry to passengers for the disruption to two consecutive Gatwick Express services on Sunday morning.

“Anyone whose Gatwick Express journey is delayed by 15 minutes or more is entitled to claim compensation through our Delay Repay scheme.”

Claiming back the £19.90 cost of the ticket is likely to be of little comfort to passengers who lost hundreds or thousands of pounds as a result of the snarl-ups.

However, a change in the National Rail Conditions of Travel in March 2018 may come to the aid of delayed travellers.

An exclusion of liability for so-called “consequential losses” has been replaced by a reference to the option of claiming under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 “where a service is not performed with reasonable care and skill”.

Gatwick Express said: “Any claim should be sent to our customer relations team where they will be assessed individually.”

Last week Gatwick Express was admonished by the Advertising Standards Authority for journey-time claims.

The “daily performance report” for the service on Sunday shows that fewer than half the trains arrived on time, though six out of seven were no more than five minutes late.