Flights out of London Stansted Airport were grounded in the early morning hours today after a fire broke out in one of the departure lounges, thus creating a major inconvenience to travellers.
This event occurred around 3:30 AM BST in the Escape Lounge of the airport.
The Airport Fire Service was able to respond in time and extinguish the fire. There have been no reported passenger injuries.
Although the fire was contained, the airport reported that the fire caused a lot of smoke, and thus evacuation of the area was carried out as a precaution.
This resulted in smoke damage and triggered security inspections, ultimately leading to the closure of the security processing and halting all departures.
This led to frustration among the passengers, as most of them went online to express their complaints about lack of communication with the staff and disorderly scenes with a large crowd of people forming both inside and outside the terminal.
After 6:00 AM, the airport declared that it had reopened the security.
Nevertheless, travellers were advised to be ready to face any form of delay and to check the status of their flights before going to the airport.
A spokesperson of Stansted said that teams are trying hard to clear the smoke from the area and make sure people can safely enter the facility. However, they admitted that the incident has caused significant disruption and are grateful that passengers have been patient allowing everything to slowly getting back to normal.