Flights have resumed at Heathrow Airport in London as its chief executive apologised to stranded passengers and defended the response to an “unprecedented” loss of power caused by a substation fire.
Thomas Woldbye described the blaze which knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes, west London, late yesterday evening as “as big as it gets for our airport” and that “we cannot guard ourselves 100%”.
The Metropolitan Police said they are not treating the incident as suspicious while the London Fire Brigade (LFB) announced its investigation will now focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
Of the power outage, Mr 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”.
Meanwhile, British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said there would be lessons to learn from the incident.
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The west London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59pm but later said repatriation flights for passengers diverted to other airports in Europe would resume this evening.
Several airlines announced they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow, including British Airways, Air Canada and United Airlines.
Restrictions on overnight flights have also been temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the UK’s Department of Transport said.
Heathrow is expected to run a full schedule tomorrow.
Around 200,000 passengers have been affected by the closure of what is Europe’s busiest airport.
Mr Woldbye said: “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.”
Asked if there is a weak point in Heathrow’s power system, he said: “You can say that but of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them.
“This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport and we are actually coming back quite fast I would say, when you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down then bring back up and make sure that they’re safe.”
He added: “This is unprecedented. It’s never happened before and that’s why I’m saying it has been a major incident.”
Mr Woldbye went on to say the airport expects to return to “100% operation” tomorrow.
He said: “We expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day.
“(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There’s no reason to come earlier.”
Read more:
What we know about events leading to Heathrow Airport closure
Heathrow cancellations: Airlines trying to re-route flights from Irish airports
The CEO said Heathrow will “look at anything we can learn from this” and encouraged the British Prime Minister to ask him any questions he has.
Speaking to reporters in Swindon, Ms Alexander acknowledged the “immense distress and disruption” caused by the closure of the airport but said the incident was “totally out of Heathrow’s control”.
She said: “They have stood up their resilience plan swiftly, and they’ve collaborated closely with our emergency responders and the airline operators, they do have backup energy supplies, they have generators, diesel generators.
“None of that failed on this occasion because that backup supply is designed to protect the critical key systems within the airport and not to provide power to the whole airport.”
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Passengers stranded in London and facing the prospect of days of disruptions were scrambling to make alternate travel arrangements.
“When we first came here, (it was) very exciting and hopeful,” said Beau Mahr, 21, from the US state of Iowa. “Now that we have to wait, it’s kind of stressful.”
Thousands of homes were left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the substation caught fire.
Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
This is believed to be the worst disruption at Heathrow since December 2010, when thousands of Christmas getaway passengers camped in the terminals because of widespread cancellations caused by snow.
In April of that year, air travel was grounded across Europe because of an ash cloud caused by an Icelandic volcanic eruption.
Today Gatwick Airport accepted seven diverted flights from locations including Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha which were originally destined for Heathrow.
Shannon Airport in Co Clare accepted six diversions from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.
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Aviation consultant John Strickland likened the disruption to what happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when flights were grounded across the US, saying: “It’s a contained version of 9/11.”
Rory Boland, editor of magazine Which? Travel, said affected passengers are not entitled to compensation but airlines should provide assistance such as overnight accommodation if required and re-routing bookings, including with rival carriers from alternative airports.
LFB deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith said: “The fire involved a transformer comprising of 25,000 litres of cooling oil fully alight.
“This created a major hazard due to the still live high-voltage equipment and the nature of the oil-fuelled fire.”
A local resident, who did not want to be named, said she heard a “massive explosion” before all the power went off, adding: “It just smelled like burning.”
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.
