Heathrow resumes operations, but disruptions could go on for days
The British flag carrier, whose hub is Heathrow, experienced the largest number of cancellations and diversions on Friday. “To recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex,” BA said on X.
The airline said it expects around 85% of its Saturday schedule to run, which leaves about 90 flights subject to potential cancellations or severe delays.
For many stranded travelers, the reopening comes as a major relief. All of Heathrow’s 1,332 scheduled flights were canceled on Friday. About 100 flights were in the air en route to the airport when it shut down, forcing diversions across the U.K., North America, the Middle East and Europe, while some long-haul flights simply turned back to their departure points.
The airport reopened sooner than expected, defying its own earlier warnings of a prolonged closure. Heathrow initially said that it would remain shut until 11:59 p.m. Friday, with disruptions potentially lasting days. However, the airport had resumed some flights by Friday evening.
A Heathrow spokesperson said Saturday that it brought in hundreds of additional staff and had added flights to accommodate an extra 10,000 passengers.
The U.K.’s National Grid said Saturday that power supplies had been restored to all customers, including Heathrow and the surrounding neighborhoods, saying it was “deeply sorry for the disruption.”
The utility added that it was working with authorities, including the police, to determine the cause of the fire at its substation. Counter-terrorism officers were involved in the investigation Friday, but British police have said that there was no initial indication of foul play.
The fire broke out just after 11 p.m. local time on Thursday at an electricity substation in North Hyde, about three miles from Heathrow.
The London Fire Brigade said the blaze involved 25,000 liters of burning oil used to cool the transformer, and required 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters to bring it under control.
Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said during a press conference on Saturday that the fire caused a power loss “equal to that of a mid-sized city,” and while backup systems worked as designed, they were not enough to run the entire airport.
Like most major airports, Heathrow has an existing plan to mitigate risks, but this incident exposed its limitations, highlighting critical vulnerabilities and raising concerns over contingency planning at such a vital transport hub.
“Contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100%, and this is one of them,” Woldbye told the U.K. press pool on Friday. “This has been a major incident. Short of anyone getting hurt, it’s as big as it gets for our airport.”
“We don’t have liability in place for incidents like this,” he added.