Flights have resumed at Gatwick but police remain vigilant in case any drones return.

A number of officers were seen on the roof of a building at the airport on Friday morning.

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe says he hopes the airport will be back to normal by the end of Saturday.

"We are now operating at almost normal runway conditions and the challenge for the airlines, as the result of this disruption, their planes are not all in the right place," he said.

"So what we'll be doing today is recovering their operations so by tomorrow we are back to standard operation and continue to recover the situation for our passengers."

He added: "Last night working with a number of government agencies and the military we were able to put in place a number of additional mitigating actions which gave me the confidence to re-open Gatwick Airport this morning.

"We now have passengers arriving and departing. We are very much hoping to run a schedule today. It's going to be disruptive. Passengers are going to be delayed. And every passenger should check with their airline before they come to the airport.

"We are very much hoping to get 100,000 passengers on their way to destinations and back into Gatwick Airport so we can begin to recover from this 36-hour incident and get those passengers to their destinations in time for Christmas."

Despite the chaos of the past days, some are being luckier than others when it comes to delays.

Engineer Greg McKendry, 27, from Glasgow, was “cautiously optimistic” that he will be able to board his flight to Orlando this morning.

He said: “I saw on the news about the drone and it didn’t seem like they were getting anywhere with sorting out the situation.

“But when I got here everything was calm so hopefully my flight will not have any problems.”

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said there had been around 40 sightings of what were thought to be a "small number of drones" while the West Sussex airport was closed.

He would not give details of what measures had been put in place, but told BBC Breakfast some of them were "military capabilities".

He added: "There are a range of measures which are there today which should give passengers confidence that they are safe to fly."

Image source, PA

The transport secretary answers why the drone couldn't have been shot down.

An Norwegian Air flight was the first to take off from Gatwick Airport on Friday after the runway was shut.

The Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was asked why the drones could not just be shot down. This is what he had to say:

Audrey Garland and her brother are trying to fly to Spain for their father's funeral, which they've already had to postpone from today until tomorrow.

"I'm desperate to get out to my mum because she's there on her own.

"Although she's got friends with her, it's not the same as having me and my brother with her. She needs us."

Ms Garland said they learnt their flight had been cancelled as they drove to the airport, and every time they had tried to re-book they had "hit a brick wall".

"We're getting quite desperate.

"We have tried to go through other airports but we just can't get anything at the moment which is actually viable for us to get there in time.

"We're just hoping that somebody can help us," she said.

BBC reporter John McManus says there are "very long queues at St Pancras" for the Eurostar.

A member of staff has told him that it's always more busy this time of year, but that "they also have extra numbers because of Gatwick".

Despite dozens of sightings, the drone, which detectives think has been adapted to cause deliberate disruption at Gatwick airport, has not been found.

Image source, Leana Grech

Leana Grech, above left, and sister-in-law Janis Greenslade were meant to return home from the Dominican Republic on Thursday - they've now been told the next available flight is 27 December.

Leana, who has health issues including type 1 diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, Sheehan's syndrome and sleep apnea, said she will be missing Christmas with her family in East Sussex.

"I'm desperately trying to get back to see my son for Christmas," she said. "We were in the Dominican on my bucket list holiday as I don't know if I can fly long haul again due to medical issues."

She is trying to find out if she can source more medication while abroad, but added: "Thank God I brought enough insulin, growth hormone and life-saving steroids and emergency injection."

Image source, Lauran O'Neill

Lauran O'Neill says her daughter cried all day after the family's Lapland trip was cancelled.

The nurse, from Harrow, London, and her husband Alex Tran, said they saved all year for the trip to Saariselka.

The 31-year-old said: "We have been hugely affected by the Gatwick closure. We have now missed our entire trip to Finland to see Santa, the huskies and reindeer and Northern Lights.

"I am a nurse and saved all year for this family trip. We will receive no compensation for flights and insurance is difficult as Finnair did not officially cancel the flight.

"I was not doing physical gifts as this was going to be the experience of a lifetime for my children.

"The whole family is devastated and my kids have been inconsolable.

"My five-year old daughter Emeli said Santa must not exist to have all these children crying. She came home and threw his invite letter in the bin.

"We have worked overtime for the last four months to give them a trip of a lifetime and to have that dissipate into nothing is so unfair for them.

"My daughters were beside themselves but Emeli cried for the whole day when she found out.

"We are trying to cobble things together to make Christmas not so bad but our family and friends have been amazing."

Image source, Lauran O'Neill

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More from Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, on Gatwick.

He says: "Look, we've all been working on this, since this happened, a huge amount of effort put in place across government, first of all to get safety measures in place, secondly to try to create other opportunities for passengers..." which include temporarily make it easier to have nighttime flights at other airports.

Image source, Reuters

As this departure board at Gatwick this morning shows, the travel disruption is continuing as many are hoping to get away - or go home - for Christmas.

Hundreds of passengers whose flights have been cancelled must now go to the back of the queue in terms of being re-booked, the Independent's travel editor, Simon Calder, has said.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast from Gatwick Airport, he estimated there were about 150,000 people "who are not where they need to be".

"The people whose flights have been cancelled must just scrabble around trying to find seats on planes which are leaving.

"The airlines have a very strict duty - if they cancel a flight, they are responsible for re-booking the passenger as soon as possible, and paying another airline to fly them if necessary, as well as providing hotel accommodation and meals.

"But I've been hearing from countless travellers here that that simply hasn't been happening - they've been left on their own," he said.

Image source, Reuters

With a limited number of flights now arriving and departing, passengers are once again on the move at Gatwick.

These pictures were taken a short time ago.

Tell us about your Gatwick disruption stories. You can email us, tweet, external us or send us a message on Facebook, external.

Image source, Reuters

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Image source, Getty Images

Gatwick Airport is "confident that a mixture of measures brought in over the last day or so now give them comfort that planes can fly safely into and out of the airport," says Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.

Do those measures include military capabilities including lasers, drone-catching nets, radio-wave fences?

"There are new technologies that are now available, some purely in the military arena, some beginning to appear on the commercial market, that are able to take action against drones," he says. "There isn't a single, off-the-shelf commercial solution that does the job, and so what has happened is a variety of things have been done... to create that degree of confidence that Gatwick is now safe to fly in and out of."

Here's a summary of what's been happening at Gatwick Airport over the past couple of days.

Wednesday 19 December

21:00 - Gatwick suspends flights in and out of the airport after reports of two drones flying near the airfield. Some planes are diverted to other airports.

Thursday 20 December

03:00 - The runway reopens.

03:45 - The runway shuts again after a further report of drone sightings.

10:20 - Sussex Police reveal the flying of drones close to the airfield is "a deliberate act to disrupt the airport", but "there are absolutely no indications to suggest this is terror-related".

12:20 - The airport's chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe says around 110,000 passengers are due to travel on Thursday, most of whom will see cancellations and disruptions.

15:50 - The Ministry of Defence says police are in "ongoing discussions" with the Army about assisting with the operation to find the drones.

17:50 - Gatwick's chief executive officer Stewart Wingate says the drone flights are "highly targeted" and have "been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run up to Christmas".

21:30 - Mr Woodroofe says the airport will remain closed for the rest of the evening after drone activity was reported "within the last hour".

Friday 21 December

05:58 - According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, a plane from East Midlands Airport lands at Gatwick.

06:30 - Gatwick Airport says the runway is "currently available" and that a "limited number" of planes are scheduled for departure and arrival.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday morning, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling says the incident has been "unprecedented anywhere in the world" and that authorities would have to "learn very quickly from what's happened" to prevent a repeat.

He said there had been about 40 sightings of a small number of drones and added that a range of measures - including military capabilities - had been put in place.

Assistant chief constable Steve Barry from Sussex Police said police now had a "range of options" which "puts us in a much better position to respond to these drone sightings" but did not go into detail about what they were.