Passengers at Gatwick face chaos after the airport shut its runway following reports its surface has been damaged.
The airport confirmed the closure of its runway as flights were diverted and delayed on Sunday afternoon.
Gatwick’s official Twitter account posted: “Our runway is temporarily closed while we carry out investigations. Apologies if you're impacted. We'll update you shortly.”
People living nearby the airport in West Sussex complained planes were circling overhead as they waited for a landing slot due to the delays.
Other people said jets were being diverted to Stansted or other airports.
Alexandra Rucki, 27, who was travelling back to Gatwick from Crete, said her flight was divereted to Stansted.
She told the Standard: "We were landing and then it suddenly went back in the air which was a funny sensation.
"An announcement said we would have to do a second attempt to land and we couldn't land right now.
"We were all wondering what was going on and another announcement said we couldn't land because there was a hole in the runway.
"They said we haven't got enough fuel to circle so we have to divert to Stansted. So now we're sat on the tarmac at Stansted waiting to be told what is going on."
The deterioration in the runway comes after a week of heavy rain and warm temperatures in London and the south-east.
A Gatwick Airport spokeswoman said: "Our main runway was temporarily closed at 3.48pm while we investigated a reported issue. We have now switched our operation to the Northern Runway and flights are departing and arriving from Gatwick.
"There will, however, be some delays to flights because of this. The safety and security of our airport and passengers is our number one priority, but we’d like to apologise to passengers impacted today.”
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