Shortly before 8pm a spokeswoman at the airport confirmed they had switched to using their back-up runway after “findings during one of [their] regular maintenance checks”.
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With 4.8m passengers travelling through the airport in August, +5.7% on previous year, Gatwick’s expansion plans have also been boosted by significant political and business support over the summer.
The problem was caused by a “hole” in the main runway, reported local newspaper Crawley News.
Gatwick Airport is now in a league of its own as it breaks its own record for the number of passengers travelling on a single runway – more than 42 million passengers now travel through the airport annually.
A hole appearing in Gatwick’s runway at around 19:40 on Sunday forced flights to circle the sky.
Eight aircraft were diverted in total and several flights delayed as a result of the find.
All flights due to land at the airport have now been diverted to Southend Airport in Essex and London Gatwick.
She said: “We would like to apologise to any passengers impacted by this but the safety of our passengers is our number one priority. We are working hard to resume our normal schedule”.
Throughout the evening the airport’s official social media channels had been kept busy dealing with inquiries from frustrated travellers.
One wrote: “When you’re part of the #Gatwickairport runway situation and end up at Heathrow three hours delayed with the vehicle at Gatwick #greatendtoholiday”.
Another passenger using the name Charla wrote: “Flight delayed then diverted to Southampton because all runways at Gatwick are closed. great”.
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Government’s yet to make a decision on whether to build a second runway at Gatwick or third at Heathrow.
