AN OXFORD family breathed a sigh of relief after they were able to fly out on a skiing holiday despite days of disruption at Gatwick Airport. 

The Shorrocks flew to Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps for their trip on Saturday as the airport slowly returned to normal. 

Vivienne Shorrock said she was 'relieved' to have avoided the drone disruption as she was worried the family's non-refundable holiday would go to waste.

She said: "But then we thought well it's a middle class problem isn't it? Oh no, we can't go on a skiing holiday.

"In perspective some people have suffered real losses by not getting where they want to go to be with family."

Rogue drone activity caused travel chaos between Wednesday and Friday with many passengers having to spend the night at the airport, where staff provided free water, blankets and food.

On Saturday long queues and some knock-on delays remained as airlines worked to clear a backlog of flights.

A Gatwick spokesman said: "Broadly things are going in the right direction. By the end of the weekend, things should be back to normal."

David Shorrock joked the drone drama was a 'nice distraction from Brexit' before offering a novel solution to the problem.

He said: "They should've got some farmers here. They would've soon sorted it out.

"You get 100 young farmers here with a flagon of cider. Free cider for anyone who shoots the drone."

Two people were arrested in connection with the 'criminal use of drones', police said, in the early hours of Saturday.

About 1,000 flights and 140,000 passengers were disrupted by the persistent drone activity.