Passengers took to twitter to express their frustrations over delays at Gatwick airport during the May Bank Holiday.

Southern Rail came under fire over the delays, as they were unable to deal with disruptions caused by long-planned engineering works. The repairs led to the closing of London Brighton main line, located South of Gatwick.

Passengers heading to the south coast had to wait for up to two hours for replacement buses.

Southern Rail in a tweet said: “It is strongly advised to not travel towards Brighton today.”

The train company further said: “There are currently large queues for the replacement bus services at Gatwick Airport and overcrowding at the station.

“As a result, customers should anticipate extended journey times and cancellations between London Victoria and Gatwick Airport to prevent further overcrowding.

“Services from Brighton towards London Victoria after 17:00 are expected to be extremely busy and journey times to be extended as a result.”

Pictures posted on social media showed long queues and huge crowds at the airport despite the sweltering heat.

A passenger, Rhi, tweeted: “Absolutely shocking scenes at Gatwick airport... only 2 train platforms operational. Then a rail replacement bus south to Three Bridges and this is the queue on 3 levels of concourse for the bus! On one of the hottest days. @SouthernRailUK this is disgraceful!”

Samantha Evans another passenger tweeted: “@SouthernRailUK it’s an absolute shambles @Gatwick_Airport. There are small children in the crowd & people with limited mobility but there’s no visible support or queuing system. Its chaotic & dangerous, why wasn’t the rail replacement service better planned?”

A spokesperson for GTR, which operates the Southern franchise, said:  “We are very sorry that passengers travelling to the south coast had to queue for longer than normal for rail replacement buses.”

“Our passenger information team helped to manage this by referring to longer queuing times and asking passengers to consider not travelling via Gatwick Airport over that time.”

By Airport Pickups London