• Rhiannon Hopcroft, 21, was on her way home to Scotland on Tuesday evening
• She was getting a connecting flight at Gatwick having flown in from Marseilles
• Ms Hopcroft, a university student, saw a member of ground crew on his mobile
• Her flight was delayed by an hour with the pilot blaming a delay in loading bags 

A student whose flight home from Gatwick was delayed by an hour was outraged when she saw a member of the ground crew sitting down and looking at Instagram and TikTok on his phone instead of loading bags.

Rhiannon Hopcroft, 21, from Inverness, was on her way home to Scotland via a connecting flight from the troubled Sussex airport on Tuesday evening.

She told MailOnline: 'Having just been told that we were being delayed because they were having trouble loading baggage to look out the window and see one of only two baggage handlers sitting down next to all the bags and blatantly scrolling on his phone was shocking.'

Ms Hopcroft, a student at Oxford Brookes University, had been on holiday with friends in the south of France and flew back to the UK from Marseilles on an easyJet flight that afternoon - which arrived on time for her flight on to Inverness.

She was encouraged that she and her fellow passengers were all boarded on time for the flight from Gatwick. 

But once they were boarded the time for the scheduled departure, 7.45pm local time, came and went without them moving.

She said: 'After a while the captain came on the tannoy to apologise and said that although the passengers were all boarded ok they were having issues getting all the check-in luggage on board and that was causing a delay.

'It was frustrating as it was very hot and uncomfortable and everyone was itching to get going but with all the cancellations we've heard about I guess we were all thinking it could be much worse.

'But then I looked out of the window and I saw that right below me was the loading ramp for bags.

'There were two guys in hi-viz jackets and on of them was putting the suitcases on it - but the other guy was just sat there right next to the bags scrolling on his phone.

'I definitely saw him scrolling on both Tiktok and Instagram - I was close enough to make out what was on his screen. His mate was doing all the work on his own.'

Eventually we took off about an hour late. From what I could see this was largely avoidable. 

'It may not have been the only reason but it can't have helped and it sent a terrible message to frustrated passengers who could see what he was doing.

'Thankfully I had enough time that it didn't cause me huge problems at the other end but I'm sure there must have been others who had problems resulting from being late.'

A spokesman for EasyJet said: 'We would like to apologise to passengers for the delayed departure of flight EZY867 from London Gatwick to Inverness, which arrived 30 minutes later than scheduled in Inverness.