When will Heathrow Airport fully reopen? Chief executive answers
ByHT News Desk
Mar 22, 2025 09:06 AM IST
Heathrow Airport chief executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to stranded passengers and defended the response to an 'unprecedented' loss of power.
Flights resumed at Britain's Heathrow Airport late Friday hours after a massive fire forced Europe's busiest airport to shut completely and left thousands of passengers stranded.
Heathrow Airport fire: There were no casualties at the scene.(AP)
Heathrow Airport fire: There were no casualties at the scene.(AP)
Heathrow Airport chief executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to stranded passengers and defended the response to an “unprecedented” loss of power caused by a substation fire.
Woldbye described the blaze, which knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening as “as big as it gets for our airport” and that “we cannot guard ourselves 100%”, the PA Media reported
How many flights were resumed?
The West London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59 pm (EST) but later said repatriation flights for passengers diverted to other airports in Europe would resume Friday evening.
Also Read | First flight touches down at London's Heathrow after 18-hour shutdown caused by power cut
Several airlines announced they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow, including British Airways (BA), Air Canada and United Airlines.
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, reported Reuters.
When will Heathrow airport fully reopen?
According to Woldbye, Heathrow Airport expects to return to “100% operation” on Saturday but BA said it is expecting around 85% of its Saturday Heathrow scheduled to run.
Also Read | Heathrow airport shutdown may have cascading effects, Air India among those hit
“I’d like to stress that this has been an incident of major severity. It’s not a small fire. We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport," he told reporters.
What caused the Heathrow fire?
While the exact cause of the fire is not known at the time of writing this report, the Metropolitan Police said they are not treating the incident as suspicious.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB), on the other hand, announced its investigation will now focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
Of the power outage, Woldbye said that a back-up transformer failed meaning systems had to be closed down in accordance with safety procedures so that power supplies could be restructured from two remaining substations to restore electricity enough to power what is described as a “mid-sized city”.
Also Read | Heathrow shutdown raises concerns over contingency planning
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said there would be lessons to learn from the incident.
There were no casualties at the scene of the fire, according to the London Ambulance Service. Footage posted to social media showed huge flames and large plumes of smoke coming from the facility.
(with inputs from PA Media)
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