London airports temporarily close due to snow

London's Stansted and Luton airports were closed this morning because of a winter storm in southern Britain, causing a backlog of flights

Stansted, which is the main base for Ryanair, shut down for at least two hours starting at 6 a.m. London time, while Luton's runway was closed for an hour beginning at 6:40 a.m., according to Bloomberg.

"There will be a knock-on effect from the closure this morning," Melvyn Nice, a spokesman for Stansted owner Heathrow Airport Ltd., told Bloomberg.

Ryanair, the Dublin-based discount carrier, said that all morning flights from the two airports were affected, according to Bloomberg.

David Roach, a spokesman for London Luton Airport Ltd., told Bloomberg that "the runway was shut during the peak rush hour but the closure was fairly short so we should get through the backlog quite quickly."

Passengers were being advised to call their airlines to check the status of their flights and to arrive at the airport early.

Music student Patrycja Kubiak told BBC News that she waited more than an hour for her flight from Stansted to Poznan in Poland, "They kept saying the flights were delayed, and after an hour and a half they said all flights were canceled," she said. "It was really cold and really unpleasant, and the gate had no carpet. I was sitting on the floor. Some of the people were stuck for two hours on the planes."

According to Bloomberg, the U.K.'s Met Office issued a Level 3 Cold Weather Action alert, which means that there's a 90% probability of cold weather including ice through Dec. 9.