Heathrow says it is expecting a full day of “100% operation” after the airport was shut over a loss of power – but passengers have been warned of further disruption.
A limited number of flights resumed overnight following an almost day-long closure after a fire at a nearby electrical substation triggered a “significant power outage” on Friday.
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The shutdown of Europe’s busiest airport led to more than 1,000 flights being cancelled and disrupted the travel plans of as many as 290,000 passengers.
On Saturday morning, a Heathrow spokesperson said it was now “open and fully operational” but that passengers should still check with their airline.
The airport said hundreds of extra staff were in terminals and more flights had been added “to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers”.
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Moment Heathrow substation ignites
Police have said the cause of the fire is believed to be non-suspicious, while London Fire Brigade (LFB) said its investigation would focus on electrical distribution equipment.
One passenger was in a taxi bound for Heathrow when she found out the airport was close.
Ray had been travelling to see family in Algeria to celebrate Ramadan and Eid and had travelled down from Manchester via train at 7am and hadn’t checked the news – so arrived in London unaware of any issues.
“I noticed the underground was disrupted, so I took a taxi there,” she told Sky News Breakfast.
“As I was in the taxi, I found out the news that Heathrow was closed, so I had to stop the taxi driver in the middle of the trip. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
She called her dad, who was in the process of driving for four hours to Algiers airport to pick her up.
When she called the airline, “they were not very optimistic about being able to reschedule” as all the next flights were full, and all the direct flights to Algeria from the UK went via Heathrow.
She is now looking for an alternative way to get to Algeria via mainland Europe, but says the flights are “very, very expensive”.
‘Back to full operation’
Heathrow boss Thomas Woldbye said the flights that took off on Friday night would help make sure the airport had “operations in place” for Saturday morning.
Several airlines, including British Airways (BA), Air Canada and United Airlines, said late on Friday that they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow.
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Drone footage shows substation on fire
A BA flight to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia also took off just before 9pm after a slight delay to its expected departure.
Mr Woldbye said passengers planning to fly from Heathrow on Saturday should arrive in time for their flight as normal and “there’s no reason to come earlier”.
“We expect to be back in full operation (Saturday), so 100% operation as a normal day,” he said.
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Substation fire near Heathrow
The chief executive also apologised to passengers whose journeys had been disrupted, describing the delays “as big as it gets for our airport” and admitting “we cannot guard ourselves 100%”.
However, he stressed the airport wouldn’t have shut unless there were “severe safety concerns”.
Mr Woldbye said a back-up transformer had failed, meaning systems had to be closed in line with safety procedures so power could be restructured from two remaining substations.
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‘We’d have walked if we had to’
BA, the biggest airline at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85% of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.
It would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals on Saturday but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
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A BA spokesman said: “We are planning to operate as many flights as possible to and from Heathrow on Saturday, but to recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex.
“We expect around 85% of our Saturday Heathrow schedule to run, but it is likely that all travelling customers will experience delays as we continue to navigate the challenges posed by Friday’s power outage at the airport.”
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The disruption began late on Thursday night when fire crews were called to a blaze in Hayes, west London, at the electricity substation serving Heathrow and local properties.
LFB deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith told reporters that the fire involved a transformer – a key part of the substation – with 25,000 litres of cooling oil “fully alight”.
Pictures from the scene showed large flames and plumes of thick black smoke, with around 70 firefighters and 10 engines working to extinguish the blaze.
Passengers arrive at Heathrow Airport as flights resume. Pic: AP
Crews evacuated 29 people from neighbouring properties but there were no casualties.
In all, 67,000 households were left without power after the fire at the substation, but all supplies were restored by 2pm on Friday.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was in close contact with the energy secretary, the home secretary and with Heathrow to “make sure that any lessons we need to learn from the systems that the airport has in place are learned”.