Long and irritating queues of up to two hours will soon be a thing of the past for Australians going through American airports, with the Federal Government confirming it is in talks with US authorities to introduce the Global Entry Program.

Travelers with GEP approval just breeze through US customs avoiding long and tedious queues.

Passengers use kiosks like the Automated Passport Control but the process is much faster with almost no queues.

The Department of Home Affairs confirmed the talks telling AirlineRatings.com that it “appreciates the interest Australian travelers have in the GEP and is examining the feasibility of Australia joining”.

Read World’s Best Airlines for 2019.

“The department is actively engaged with the United States Customs and Border Protection agency to develop a mutual understanding of how membership of the GEP will work for Australian travelers,” the department said.

However, an government insider told AirlineRatings GEP “is going ahead.”

Global Entry allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers arriving in the US.

At airports, program members use global entry kiosks, present their machine-readable passport, place their fingerprints on the scanner for fingerprint verification and complete a customs declaration.

The kiosk issues the traveler a transaction receipt and directs the traveler to baggage claim and the exit.

Travelers must be pre-approved for the Global Entry program and all applicants undergo a rigorous background check and in-person interview before enrolment.

Once approved, Australians can then get TSA PreCheck for expedited security screening for domestic flights.

Part of the thrust to include Australia in the program comes from US senators who have lobbied for an agreement between the US and Australia for a pilot program involving allowing Australian citizens to apply for expedited customs clearance at Hono-lulu’s Daniel K. Inouye international airport.

Senator Mazie Hirono said, “expanding global entry and other trusted traveler programs helps grow Hawaii’s international visitor industry while facilitating secure travel to our country”.

“Last year, Australian visitors spent more than $872 million and supported over 10,000 jobs in Hawaii and we can only expect Australian visitor arrivals and spending to grow with expedited screening provided by the global entry program,” she said.

The Hawaii Tourism JUAuthority said more than 324,000 Australian citizens visited Hawaii last year, making Australia Hawaii’s third-biggest international visitor market after Japan (1.5 million visitors) and Canada (518,000 visitors).

In addition said Senator Hirono said the US Commerce Department estimated about 1.3 million Australians visited the US last year and spent $US8.6 billion, placing Australia in the top 10 markets for US travel and tourism exports.

In August 2018, Senator Hirono led a bipartisan coalition of 26 senators to urge Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen to approve Australia’s inclusion in the Global Entry program.

Authorities have arrested two people in connection with the criminal use of drones that paralyzed Gatwick Airport, over the past two days.

“As part of our ongoing investigations into the criminal use of drones which has severely disrupted flights in and out of Gatwick Airport, Sussex Police made two arrests just after 10pm on 21 December,” police said in a statement.

“Our investigations are still on-going.”

Flights had resumed Friday morning local time but were suspended for over an hour while authorities investigated the latest incident.

“Airfield movements were suspended while we investigated this as safety remains our main priority,’’ Gatwick management said. “The military measures we have in place at the airport have provided us with reassurance necessary to re-open our airfield.”

READ Aussie company says anti-drone tech could prevent Gatwick chaos.

The military had been called in to deal with a drone causing travel chaos at London’s Gatwick Airport in what has been characterized as a deliberate act of sabotage.

Gatwick remained closed between Wednesday night and Friday morning, disrupting the pre-Christmas travel of more than 120, 000 people, after drones had been repeatedly flown over the airfield.

Insurers are likely to be hit with a deluge of claims as a result of the closures and the Civil Aviation Authority warned passengers they would not qualify for additional compensation under EU rules.

The CAA said that it considered the drone attack an “exceptional circumstance”.

“In such circumstances, airlines are not obliged to pay financial compensation to passengers affected by the disruption,’’ it said.

However, it said that EU261 regulations meant that those who no longer wished to fly could get a refund and suggested those that still wanted to travel contact their carrier.

Sussex police are hunting for the person or persons responsible and have warned the offense attracts up to five years in jail. They are believed to be using an industrial category drone and operating it at a distance.

Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry told the BBC “persons of interest” had been identified during the investigation.

Barry said there was no evidence of an involvement of a foreign power, but described the drone activity as “really high-end criminal behavior”.

He said environmental activism was one line of inquiry.

“We’re working on the assumption that there was more than one drone operating around Gatwick in the last 48 hours,” he said.

“In terms of how many perpetrators, there’s a number of lines of inquiry, there’s an ongoing investigation, we’re pursuing that trying to find out who has been responsible for this really malicious criminal behavior

Apologetic Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate earlier said he shared the anger and frustration over the inconvenience caused by “this criminal behavior”.

“This is a highly targeted activity which has been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run-up to Christmas,’’ Wingate said.

“We are working very closely with the police and the security services to try to resolve this for passengers.

“We hope passengers appreciate that we must and will always prioritize their safety over everything else. “

Wingate also noted the wider challenge posed by the disruption for the aviation industry.

“Although not for today, these events obviously highlight a wider strategic challenge for aviation in this country which we need to address together with speed – the aviation industry, Government and all the other relevant authorities,” Wingate said.

“It cannot be right that drones can close a vital part of our national infrastructure in this way. This is obviously a relatively new technology and we need to think through together the right solutions to make sure it cannot happen again.”

Authorities say they have identified persons of interest in the UK travel outrage after a further drone sighting again closed Gatwick airport Friday evening.

Flights had resumed Friday morning local time but were suspended for over an hour while authorities investigated the latest incident.

“Airfield movements were suspended while we investigated this as safety remains our main priority,’’ Gatwick management said. “The military measures we have in place at the airport have provided us with reassurance necessary to re-open our airfield.”

READ Aussie company says anti-drone tech could prevent Gatwick chaos.

The military had been called in to deal with a drone causing travel chaos at London’s Gatwick Airport in what has been characterized as a deliberate act of sabotage.

Gatwick remained closed between Wednesday night and Friday morning, disrupting the pre-Christmas travel of more than 120, 000 people, after drones had been repeatedly flown over the airfield.

Insurers are likely to be hit with a deluge of claims as a result of the closures and the Civil Aviation Authority warned passengers they would not qualify for additional compensation under EU rules.

The CAA said that it considered the drone attack an “exceptional circumstance”.

“In such circumstances, airlines are not obliged to pay financial compensation to passengers affected by the disruption,’’ it said.

However, it said that EU261 regulations meant that those who no longer wished to fly could get a refund and suggested those that still wanted to travel contact their carrier.

Sussex police are hunting for the person or persons responsible and have warned the offense attracts up to five years in jail. They are believed to be using an industrial category drone and operating it at a distance.

Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry told the BBC “persons of interest” had been identified during the investigation.

Barry said there was no evidence of an involvement of a foreign power, but described the drone activity as “really high-end criminal behavior”.

He said environmental activism was one line of inquiry.

“We’re working on the assumption that there was more than one drone operating around Gatwick in the last 48 hours,” he said.

“In terms of how many perpetrators, there’s a number of lines of inquiry, there’s an ongoing investigation, we’re pursuing that trying to find out who has been responsible for this really malicious criminal behavior

Apologetic Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate earlier said he shared the anger and frustration over the inconvenience caused by “this criminal behavior”.

“This is a highly targeted activity which has been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run-up to Christmas,’’ Wingate said.

“We are working very closely with the police and the security services to try to resolve this for passengers.

“We hope passengers appreciate that we must and will always prioritize their safety over everything else. “

Wingate also noted the wider challenge posed by the disruption for the aviation industry.

“Although not for today, these events obviously highlight a wider strategic challenge for aviation in this country which we need to address together with speed – the aviation industry, Government and all the other relevant authorities,” Wingate said.

“It cannot be right that drones can close a vital part of our national infrastructure in this way. This is obviously a relatively new technology and we need to think through together the right solutions to make sure it cannot happen again.”

The military has been called in to deal with a drone causing travel chaos at London’s Gatwick Airport in what has been characterized as a deliberate act of sabotage.

Gatwick remained closed Thursday, disrupting the pre-Christmas travel of more than 110, 000 people as over 650 flights were canceled or diverted.

It had been closed since Wednesday night because a drone or drones had been repeatedly flown over the airfield.

Sussex police are hunting for the person or persons responsible and have warned the offense attracts up to five years in jail. They are believed to be using an industrial category drone and operating it at a distance. It is not believed to terror-related.

Supt Justin Burtenshaw, the head of armed policing for Sussex and Surrey, told the BBC whomever was controlling the drones was “painstaking” because it was “a difficult and challenging thing to locate them”.

“Each time we believe we get close to the operator, the drone disappears; when we look to reopen the airfield, the drone reappears,” he said.

It was not clear late Thursday when the airport would re-open and officials say it could take days to clear the backlog.

The airport ’s biggest operator, Ryanair,  announced all flights scheduled to operate from Gatwick on Friday would instead operate from London Stansted.

Apologetic Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate said he shared the anger and frustration over the inconvenience caused by “this criminal behavior”.

“This is a highly targeted activity which has been designed to close the airport and bring maximum disruption in the run-up to Christmas,’’ Wingate said.

“We are working very closely with the police and the security services to try to resolve this for passengers.

“We hope passengers appreciate that we must and will always prioritize their safety over everything else. “

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed that the army had been deployed at Gatwick.

“The armed forces have a range of unique capabilities and this isn’t something we would usually deploy but we are there to assist and do everything we can so that they are in a position to open the airport at the earliest opportunity,” he said.

Gatwick’s CEO also noted the wider challenge posed by the disruption for the aviation industry.

“Although not for today, these events obviously highlight a wider strategic challenge for aviation in this country which we need to address together with speed – the aviation industry, Government and all the other relevant authorities,” Wingate said.

“It cannot be right that drones can close a vital part of our national infrastructure in this way. This is obviously a relatively new technology and we need to think through together the right solutions to make sure it cannot happen again.”

Flights through London’s busy Gatwick Airport have been suspended for a second time after briefly re-opening early Thursday morning leading to travel chaos.

Inbound flights have been diverted to airports across the UK and Europe.

The airport has just tweeted:

Thursday 07.40: Flights to and from Gatwick remain suspended, due to drone activity. Please do not travel to the airport without checking with your airline first. We ‘re sorry for the inconvenience today, but the safety of our passengers and staff is our no.1 priority.

The BBC tweeted:

“I have a drone on my airfield… and #Gatwick will not be able to reopen until that drone is brought down” – Gatwick’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Woodroofe apologises to passengers and says flights to and from the airport remain suspended

Easyjet has tweeted:

1. We have offered affected passengers who were diverted ground transportations to reach Gatwick and hotel accommodation was provided. Passengers who arranged their own transportation will be reimbursed by easyJet.
2. easyJet‏Verified account @easyJet 5m5 minutes ago

   More

   Customers on cancelled flights will be entitled to a free of charge transfer to an alternative flight. Whilst the situation is outside of our control we would like to apologise to passengers for the inconvenience caused.

Authorities closed the airfield for five hours from 11:03 pm London time on December 19 to 3:01 am on December 20.

The closure caused passengers to be delayed at Gatwick and flights diverted after two of the unmanned devices were spotted near a runway.

Gatwick averages 780 flight movements and 125,000 passengers per day but this would be a particularly busy time ahead of Christmas.

Passengers tweeted that they were stuck on planes at Gatwick while others said they were diverted to Heathrow and Manchester.

Read: World’s Best Airlines for 2019

Airport authorities said a further drone sighting after the airport re-opened had forced the runway to be closed again from 3:45am  and it was investigating the sighting with Sussex police.

“We will update when we have suitable reassurance that it is appropriate to re-open the runway,” they said.

The authorities advised anyone traveling on December 20 or collecting someone from the airport to check the status of their flight.

“Unfortunately, this has led to a number of flights being diverted to other airports while aircraft have also been unable to depart from Gatwick,” the authorities said.

“Our airlines are working to provide passengers with hotel accommodation or transport passengers landing at airports other than Gatwick by other means, and Gatwick staff are looking after passengers in our terminals.”

Flightradar 24 said earlier that over two dozen flights inbound to Gatwick had been diverted at that stage with others continuing to divert or hold pending an all clear.

Some of the public response:

Ben Clewer Retweeted Gatwick Airport LGW

And another:

And….

Developing story.