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British Airways says it expects ‘near-full’ schedule at Heathrow on Sunday after fire at electricity substation caused 15-hour shutdown
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Heathrow’s chair has ordered an internal investigation into the airport’s crisis management plans and response to the power outage which forced it to close for 15 hours on Friday.
Former transport secretary Ruth Kelly – who is a member of Heathrow’s board – will lead the review after more than 1,300 flights were grounded and up to 300,000 passengers were affected worldwide.
The outage – caused by a fire at a single substation in west London – has been dubbed “a huge embarrassment” by Labour peer Toby Harris, who leads the National Preparedness Commission campaign group, while the boss of supply chain firm PS Forwarding warned the shutdown had left Heathrow a “laughing stock” in the global freight community.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband has separately ordered the National Energy System Operator to “urgently investigate” the electrical substation fire, which is expected to report its findings within six weeks.
Despite the airport saying it was “fully operational” once again on Saturday, at least 100 more flights had been cancelled as of 3pm. However, British Airways – whose main hub is Heathrow – said it expected to have a “near-full” schedule on Sunday.
Farah Rafeeq, 24, was due to travel with Singapore Airlines on Friday from Heathrow with her 32-year-old friend Niken Wulan, to another friend’s wedding in Cambodia on Sunday.
The mass cancellation of flights means they will now miss part of the ceremony.
They found an alternative flight from Gatwick airport with Turkish Airlines and Bangkok Airways that will get them to Cambodia for Sunday afternoon.
Ms Rafeeq, who works in climate project management, told the PA news agency from Gatwick on Saturday: “The last few hours have been nightmarish because it is one of our closest friends’ wedding and we have to travel for at least 20 hours to get there.
“We had to pay double the amount, between £600 and £700, for the new flight, and we had planned this trip for months and had hotels booked and are flying to South-east Asia after the wedding.”
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said a back-up transformer failed during the power outage on Friday, meaning systems had to be closed in accordance with safety procedures so that power supplies could be restructured from two remaining substations to restore enough electricity to power what is described as a “mid-sized city”.
He apologised to stranded passengers and defended the airport’s response to the situation, saying the incident is as “as big as it gets for our airport” and that “we cannot guard ourselves 100 per cent”.
Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024, and around 200,000 passengers have been affected by Friday’s closure.
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.
The UK’s transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “This incident caused significant disruption but Heathrow, National Grid, and our emergency services have worked swiftly to get people travelling again.
“Heathrow is a massive airport that uses the energy of a small city, so it’s imperative we identify how this power failure happened and learn from this to ensure a vital piece of national infrastructure remains strong.
“Whilst Heathrow is back to business, some disruption is expected over coming days as things get back to normal so I encourage anyone travelling to check with their airlines and plan their journeys.”
British Airways – whose main hub is Heathrow – said it expected to have a “near-full” schedule on Sunday.
The flagship carrier said it had operated around 90 per cent of its schedule at Heathrow on Saturday, after chief executive Sean Doyle on Friday warned the “huge impact” of Friday’s outage would last for days.
As of 3pm on Saturday, Heathrow’s live arrivals and departures boards showed that more than 100 flights had been cancelled since Saturday morning.
A transformer at the substation caught fire at Heathrow Airport shutting airport for a day on Friday. However, it is not yet known what caused it.
One nearby resident described their room shaking and hearing a loud bang as the substation caught fire.
London Fire Brigade deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith said: “The fire involved a transformer comprising 25,000 litres of its cooling oil fully alight.
“This created a major hazard owing to the still live high-voltage equipment and the nature of an oil-fuelled fire.”
Phillip Kizun had to devise a new route on Friday after his flight from London to Dublin was cancelled due to the outage at Heathrow.
Mr Kizun, 58, took a train to Wales and boarded a ferry from Holyhead to reach the Irish capital, meeting several European and American travellers making similar last-minute changes.
“It was an absolute real ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’” he told The New York Times, referencing the 1987 Steve Martin-John Candy comedy, shortly after arriving in Dublin for work.
The outage, caused by a fire at an energy substation near Heathrow, forced the airport to shut down for much of the day, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Announcing the internal probe into Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s chair Lord Paul Deighton said: “Closing the airport yesterday had significant impacts for our passengers, our customers, our colleagues and the country.
“Heathrow regrets the disruption this caused. We hope that all those affected understand that the decision was made in order to prioritise the safety of our passengers and colleagues.
“We are committed to finding any potential learnings from this unprecedented incident.
“To fully understand what happened, I have asked Ruth Kelly, former secretary of state for transport and an independent member of Heathrow’s Board, to undertake a review.
“The Kelly Review will analyse all of the relevant material concerning the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s response during the incident and how the airport recovered the operation with the objective of identifying any improvements that could be made to our future resilience.”
Former transport secretary Ruth Kelly – who is a member of Heathrow’s board – will undertake a review of the airport’s crisis management plans and its response to Friday’s outage, the airport’s chair Lord Paul Deighton has announced.
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