Ballsout
I've been wondering about that, but assumed that in some way the protestors had managed to render the airfield non-operational by creating an obstruction where none is allowed under ICAO ie CAP168.
If they were blocking a taxiway, but not infringing a take-off or kanding surface or in the strip, operations could have continued, I would have thought, although probably at a slow rate. Better than nothing, though.
The hole in the fence could have been guarded to preserve security, with the protestors contained in their pen. I would simply have left them there, incommunicado ie no press, forbidden to leave, and carried on operating until they begged to be let out one by one for food, warmth or a loo, when each one would have been taken to one of a variety of different places within 15 miles or so and left there. But then I don't run an airport any more.
Above all else I would not have called the Police, and it was that which probably resulted in airport closure as their bovine, instant and unnecessary reaction to the problem..
What are the facts of the matter? Anyone really know, please?
It's the same management that failed to keep LGW open today, of course, with what by any standard was a huge cock-up.