'Hero of Gatwick' becomes viral sensation after shouting out instructions to stranded passengers
Kurtis Toy, 36, took matters into his own hands after his flight to Aberdeen from Gatwick airport was cancelled on Tuesday, having already spent four hours on board without any food.
The disruption, which is now into its third day, saw more than 330,000 passengers affected and over 2,000 flights cancelled, leaving airport staff facing crowds of stranded and anxious travellers.
Spotting two overwhelmed easyJet customer service staff struggling to relay information, Mr Toy stepped in and became a human megaphone, calling out instructions to passengers desperately trying to find out how to retrieve their luggage.
Footage from the terminal shows Mr Toy loudly relaying updates to the crowd, with passengers applauding and encouraging him to continue.
The video later went viral on TikTok, where social media users praised Mr Toy for his quick thinking and willingness to step in.
In the video, he can be heard saying: “Everyone listen up for a second again please. So, if your flight currently says cancelled, and it's not one of the ones I've read out, we don't know which gate to go to for you to get your luggage back.
“The problem is obviously for security reasons, you need to be escorted out of the airport but they're trying to organise it obviously for everyone who's been cancelled, so there's a list coming in very, very slowly of where to go for which cancellation.”
Some social media users joked that Mr Toy must be a “first-born child” to have commanded the attention of such a large crowd, while another suggested he had to be a teacher who had survived a school trip with a class full of children.
But in reality, Mr Toy is actually a cyber security consultant from Aberdeenshire.
Ironically, he had been due to give a talk in London about resilience when technology fails — only to find himself putting that expertise into practice when the technical failure threw the airport into chaos.
Mr Toy told Metro he decided to step in after overhearing staff trying to share updates with stranded passengers, but realising their voices were struggling to carry.
He stressed that the overwhelmed staff were doing “remarkably well” given the circumstances, and said he realised he could help get their message across, admitting that he didn’t “have a problem with shouting to people”.
He told the newspaper: “I heard what one member of staff had said, but the other person on the other side did not. So I just shouted it out.
“She was reluctant, and I was like, "You guys can crack on with getting the info, and then I can just call it out for you – if that would help?". I read out the first lot, I got a round of applause, and somebody shouted thank you, which was nice.
“So I turned to the others and I just said to them quietly, "We've got this. Let's do another one".
Despite winning praise from fellow passengers and being hailed as a “hero” online, Mr Toy insisted he did not see his actions as heroic, just customer service.
After disruption continued on Wednesday at some airports as airlines dealt with knock-on impacts, Heathrow, London Stansted, Manchester and Gatwick all said Thursday’s operations are set to continue as normal.
British Airways (BA), which previously said the fault had forced it to cancel almost 550 flights that had impacted more than 85,000 passengers, said it expects to “operate a normal schedule” on Thursday.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday that she did not believe the air traffic control issue was “unavoidable”, while Downing Street said the Government still had confidence in Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe amid calls for his resignation.
Addressing the Commons, Ms Alexander said the disruption was caused by a “four-hour air traffic outage” and apologised “wholeheartedly” to affected passengers.
She said Mr Rolfe had informed her the outage was caused by a technical issue at Nats’ Swanwick site.
“So, while my understanding from Nats is that we can rule out a cyber attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable,” she said.
BA previously said the airline has “long made the case for improved resilience in aviation” and issues raised by the system failure need “to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.