The outage was reported shortly after 8am. However, by 9.30am, images posted on social media showed crowds of people gathering around the makeshift solution to check the status of their flight.

Disruption continued throughout much of Monday before it was finally resolved by 6pm.

Gatwick initially said an IT issue was to blame, but later confirmed the problem was traced to a damaged fibre optic cable.

https://twitter.com/TamaraSalem/status/1031458815852589056

Taking to Twitter at around 11am, the airport said: “Due to an ongoing issue with Vodafone - an IT provider for the airport - our flight information screens are not displaying correctly.

“Please use the temporary flight boards in the departure lounges or listen for airline flight announcements. We expect Vodafone to resolve the issue soon and would like to apologise to passengers for any inconvenience.”

In an update issued at 1pm, the airport further clarified: “Due to damage to a Vodafone fibre optic cable, we are continuing to display our flight info manually.

“Contingencies are working - we have whiteboards and friendly staff on hand to help, and tens of thousands of passengers have departed on time. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

Finally though, shortly before 6pm, the airport added: “The earlier issue with with our flight information screens in the terminals has now been resolved and flights are showing correctly.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience to our passengers today while Vodafone fixed the problem.”