Heathrow Airport reopens after nearby fire — but travelers told to expect delays

London’s Heathrow Airport reopened Saturday but travelers are being warned of serious delays as airways scramble to resume flights and return stranded passengers.

Europe’s busiest airport was closed for many of Friday after an influence outage following a fire at a nearby electrical substation, inflicting over 800 flights to be canceled out and in of the airport, in accordance to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The primary flight took off from the airport late Friday native time, nonetheless, and the airport’s departure board signifies that almost all of flights are due to run as scheduled on Saturday.

“Flights have resumed at Heathrow following yesterday’s energy outage,” the airport stated on its web site Saturday.  

“In the event you’re due to journey right now, we advise you to nonetheless contact your airline for the newest flight info earlier than heading to the airport. We apologize for the disruption and recognize your persistence while operations return to regular.”

Nationwide Grid stated Saturday that energy provide had been restored to all prospects, together with Heathrow, permitting operations to resume.

“We at the moment are implementing measures to assist additional enhance the resilience ranges of our community,” the utility firm stated in an announcement.

“We’re deeply sorry for the disruption brought about and are persevering with to work carefully with the Authorities, Heathrow and the police to perceive the reason for the incident.”

London’s Metropolitan Police stated that whereas there was “no indication of foul play,” the counterterrorism division would now lead the investigation into the fire.

“Given the situation of the substation and the impression this incident has had on vital nationwide infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command is now main enquiries,” the pressure stated in a put up on X.

Airways are speeding to resume flights and get hundreds of stranded passengers to their last locations.

British Airways was the airline most affected by the incident, with over half of its Friday schedule canceled. It stated it expects to run nearly all of its Heathrow schedule on Saturday, but that prospects ought to expect delays.

“We anticipate that round 85% of our Saturday 22 March Heathrow schedule will run as deliberate, but to get better an operation of our measurement is extraordinarily advanced, so our prospects will seemingly expertise delays,” the airline stated in an announcement Saturday.

“We’re advising prospects to journey to the airport as regular except told in any other case. In case your flight goes to be disrupted, we are going to contact you as quickly as attainable to let you recognize what you want to do.”

It added that it was providing “versatile choices” enabling these due to journey from Heathrow this weekend to rebook for a special date without cost.

Virgin Atlantic, in the meantime, stated it additionally deliberate to run a “near-full schedule with restricted cancellations” on Saturday.

Heathrow Airport has an estimated 1,300 takeoffs and landings on the airport per day, in accordance to its web site. It dealt with a document 83.9 million passengers final yr — a virtually 6% improve from 2023.

The incident has raised questions over the dependence of the airport on a single energy supply.

Willie Walsh — former CEO of British Airways-owner IAG and now CEO of IATA, an airline business group — criticized Heathrow Airport for its “whole planning failure” and questioned who would cowl the prices of the ensuing disruptions.

“We should discover a fairer allocation of passenger care prices than airways alone choosing up the tab when infrastructure fails,” he stated. “Till that occurs, Heathrow has little or no incentive to enhance.”