A "computer glitch" at Gatwick airport which lead to the clocks not going back on Sunday morning led to travel "chaos" as "arrivals and departures were advertised an hour late", provoking nonplussed passengers to besiege check-in desks.

The system was supposed to automatically adjust clocks for the end of British Summer Time, but "inexplicably failed to do so", the Telegraph reports. The glitch also meant Ceefax, Teletext and the Gatwick website displayed the wrong times.

Gatwick spokesman Stuart McDonald said: "It was spotted at 6am. They have been working on it all day. It should have been automated. I have never heard of this before. It is certainly not a manual thing."

In a statement, the airport operator said that the snafu only affected six or seven inbound flights, and the clocks were reset by lunchtime.®

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