Flights resume at London Heathrow after a daylong closure sparked travel
chaos around the world
[March 22, 2025]
By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) — London Heathrow Airport said it was “fully operational” on
Saturday, after an almost daylong closure sparked by an electrical
substation fire. But airlines warned that severe disruption will last
for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers
to their destinations.
The airport's boss said he was proud of Heathrow's response to the
incident. But inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned
politicians sought answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could
shut down Europe’s busiest air hub.
“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and
we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000
passengers traveling through the airport,” Heathrow said in a statement,
advising passengers to check with their airline before going to the
airport.
British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, said it expects to operate
about 85% of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday. It
said that "to recover an operation of our size after such a significant
incident is extremely complex.”
More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded
Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers)
away from the airport cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000
properties.
Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion and then
seeing a fireball and clouds of smoke when the blaze ripped through the
substation. The fire was brought under control after seven hours, but
the airport was shut for almost 18. A handful of flights took off and
landed late Friday.
Police said they do not consider the fire suspicious, and the London
Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical
distribution equipment at the substation.
Still, the huge impact of the fire left authorities facing criticism
that Britain’s creaking infrastructure is ill-prepared to deal with
disasters or attacks.
The British government acknowledged that authorities had questions to
answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this
scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said he was “proud” of the way
airport and airline staff had responded.
[to top of second column]
|
A plane is prepared whilst another airplane approaches landing at
Heathrow Airport after a fire at an electrical substation shuttered
Europe's busiest air travel hub in London, Friday, March 21,
2025.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
"Remember, the situation was not created at Heathrow Airport," he
told the BBC. “The airport didn’t shut for days. We shut for hours."
He said Heathrow's backup power supply, designed for emergencies,
worked as expected, but it wasn’t enough to run the whole airport,
which uses as much energy as a small city.
“That’s how most airports operate," said Woldbye, who insisted “the
same would happen in other airports" faced with a similar blaze.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international
travel, and saw 83.9 million passengers last year.
Passengers on about 120 flights were in the air when the closure was
announced found themselves landing in different cities, and even
different countries.
Friday’s disruption was one of the most serious since the 2010
eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed clouds
of ash into the atmosphere and shut Europe’s airspace for days.
Mark Doherty and his wife were halfway across the Atlantic when the
inflight map showed their flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy
Airport to Heathrow was turning around.
“I was like, you’re joking,” Doherty said before the pilot told
passengers they were heading back to New York.
Doherty called the situation “typical England — got no back-up plan
for something happens like this. There’s no contingency plan.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
