Over 1,500 airline passengers, who were to arrive at London Gatwick Airport, faced disruption after 24 flights were unable to land at the airport due to the combination of poor visibility and runway repair.

According to the reports, passengers of Easyjet, British Airways and Thomson had to be diverted to Stansted, Luton and Bristol airports. It is that hoped services would have returned to normal at airport this morning. Affected passengers are being put on coaches and driven back to Gatwick.

“We had some planned runway maintenance works scheduled for last night which all flight operators were informed about and when we do that we have to use our second runway which is a visual strip. We then suffered some fog which led to 24 aircraft being diverted”, said a Gatwick spokesman.

Planned maintenance work was going on at the airport’s main runway overnight, leaving just the second landing strip open. But the fog meant short and medium-haul flights had to be diverted from around 12.10 am onwards. London City Airport was also suffering fog problems this morning.

Reportedly, three British Airways short-haul flights due to depart Gatwick this morning have been cancelled due to the disruption and eight flights have been delayed. A spokesman for Gatwick said the main runway reopened at 5.25 am and no major delays are expected today although there could be minor disruption to some flights.

“It would be prudent for passengers to check with their airlines just in case,” he added

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