Flights resume at UK’s Heathrow airport after fire sparks power outage, travel chaos
The closure caused misery for passengers and provoked anger from airlines, which questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail
Flights at Britain’s Heathrow resumed late on Friday after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe’s busiest airport for the day, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and causing travel turmoil worldwide.
Heathrow said its teams worked tirelessly to reopen the world’s fifth-busiest airport after it was forced to close entirely after a huge fire engulfed a nearby substation on Thursday night, with travellers told to stay away.
The airport had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in Britain and across Europe, while many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure.
Heathrow said there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mostly focused on relocating aircraft and bringing planes into London.
“Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, to 100 per cent operation as a normal day,” Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said. “What I’d like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected … we are very sorry about all the inconvenience.”
Police said that after an initial assessment they were not treating the incident as suspicious, although inquiries remained ongoing. London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment.