NATS, the UK's air traffic control service, said "weather disruption was expected to continue through the rest of the day" after "forecasted severe weather across the south east of England".

A London Gatwick spokesperson told BBC News: "Due to ongoing thunderstorms across the network last night, temporary air traffic restrictions were put in place, which resulted in some flights being delayed and cancelled this morning."

Easyjet said in a statement: "Due to thunderstorms in the south of the UK which is restricting the number of arrivals and departures today, like other airlines we are experiencing some disruption to our flying programme and have had to pre-emptively cancel some flights to and from Gatwick in advance.

"We are doing all possible to minimise the impact of the weather disruption for our customers and are notifying passengers in advance with their options to rebook or receive a refund as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required."

The airline said the delays were outside of its control but it was sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Passenger Cameron Ashwin said he had been grounded on a BA plane in Gatwick since just after 06:00 but was now not due to leave until midday because of the storm.

One woman on X tweeted Easyjet on Saturday morning saying: "My daughter has been sat on a plane at Gatwick for 4 hours and now you've cancelled the flight. She's on an Easyjet holiday. What should she do?"

Another said she was in Pula airport in Croatia but her Jet2 flight status was showing as delayed more than three hours.

Parts of eastern and south-eastern England remain very hot this weekend, with a Met Office amber warning for extreme heat in place until 09:00 BST on Sunday - but isolated thunderstorms are affecting parts of the UK too.

The thunderstorm to the south of the UK is forecast to worsen throughout Saturday afternoon.