Ryanair has announced that all of its flights scheduled to fly in and out of Gatwick Airport today will instead operate to and from London Stansted.

The airline says all affected customers have been notified.

Aer Lingus has said it is also putting contingency plans in place to minimise disruption.

It is increasing capacity to Heathrow and also accommodating guests at other London airports.

It comes as a number of airlines have indicated that the runway at Gatwick has reopened.

In an update on its website, easyJet said: “Gatwick airport have confirmed that the runway is now open. We do expect that the number of departures and landings will be restricted to begin with, which means that we are likely to experience more disruption to the flying programme.

“We would like to request our passengers to continue to check the status of their flight on the easyJet Flight Tracker.”

In response to a customer on Twitter, British Airways said: “We’ve received confirmation approx 30 minutes ago from London Gatwick, advising the airport is back open and the majority of flights operating as scheduled”.

According to Flightradar24, a plane from East Midlands Airport landed at Gatwick at 5.58am.