Drone interruptions have recently been causing havoc across London airports. This has been especially true at London Gatwick airport, the UK’s second busiest airport with 45.5 million using it in 2017, the deliberate drone disruption caused 120,000 passengers to be disrupted with the runway shutting down for 32 hours between 19 and 21 December 2018. This has been the largest disruption of the airport since ash from the Icelandic volcano caused London Gatwick to shutdown. These types of occasions had happened before in 2017 but to a far lesser extent. Now, these drone disruptions have started disturbing London Heathrow Europe’s busiest airport today however only halted departures for 2 hours.

Chris Grayling the Transport Secretary prior to the Gatwick Airport drone shutdown Grayling had ignored numerous warnings about the threat of drone delaying tougher draft legislation for publication in 2019, allowing civil servants to be diverted to Brexit related tasks.

The two most effective measures to counter drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) seems to be AUDS or trained eagles. AUDS or Anti-UAV Defense Systems work by blocking a signal for up to 10km or 6 miles. This makes it very effective due its very large range although it is very expensive. One method Dutch police use are eagles they are great at snatching up UAVs at shorter distances although require a lot of training. I believe is a far better approach than an outright ban because there is nothing wrong with using a drone legally away from airports

Overall, I believe the government have realised how much investment is needed for security at UK airports as they propose tough legislation and use better systems like AUDS or eagles to prevent another disaster.