Scores of flights were cancelled or delayed at Luton Airport after it was forced to close its runway on Monday afternoon.

The runway has since re-opened to both arrivals and departures, but departing flights were suffering delays of around an hour this morning.

In a tweet yesterday afternoon, the airport said high surface temperatures caused a small section of the runway to lift.

“Engineers are currently on site and we hope to resume operations shortly,” it added, at 17:30.

It posted again at 18:00 to say the runway had reopened at 17:40, but only to departing flights. “Arrivals remain suspended until further notice,” it added. “We apologise for the inconvenience.”

However, the airport later tweeted to say it had reopened to all flights at 18:05.

At least 14 flights that we due to land at Luton were diverted to other airports, including London Gatwick and London Stansted, while around 60 departing flights have been cancelled or severely delayed.

Temperatures at Luton Airport reached 36 degrees yesterday afternoon, on the UK’s hottest day on record. They are due to hit 38 degrees on Tuesday.

To add to passengers’ frustrations, the airport’s website crashed on Monday afternoon due to the volume of traffic, leaving customers unable to obtain updates. It crashed again on Tuesday morning.