Flight operations resume at Heathrow Airport

LONDON: 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, according to SKY news.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.