British Airways warned of “huge impact” of Heathrow Airport’s shutdown into the weekend as authorities aim to return to normal operation today after the airport was shut over a loss of power.
Flights to and from Heathrow Airport have started to resume after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe's busiest airport for most of the day, affecting around 200,000 passengers.
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, British Airways flight BA56 from Johannesburg, South Africa was the first regular passenger flight to land at Heathrow since Thursday evening, touching down at 4.37am.
Earlier, Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye told reporters yesterday afternoon that they “expect to be back in full operation” today, while BA has said, it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights.
A spokesperson 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.”
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Key Points
- Flights begin landing at Heathrow after mass disruption
- Passengers to face more delays as Heathrow aims to return to normal operation
- Around 200,000 passengers hit by airport closure
- Saturday cancellations at Heathrow hit 100
- British Airways warns 'huge impact' of Heathrow shutdown will last 'days'
- Fire not being treated as suspicious, say police
- We'll learn lessons, pledges transport secretary
Another 100 Heathrow flights cancelled on Saturday
07:50
,
Simon Calder
After more than 1,300 flights were grounded at London Heathrow, around 100 more have been axed by airlines whose flight crew and aircraft are out of position.
British Airways has cancelled almost 80 flights on Saturday after almost its entire schedule was grounded on Friday.
At least 20 long-haul inbound flights are cancelled, including four from New York JFK. Six outbound flights – to Boston, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Dubai and Riyadh – have been grounded.
Twenty BA short-haul flights serving domestic and European destinations have been grounded.
Virgin Atlantic has cancelled six inbound arrivals after the outbound flights could not operate on Friday, and the morning flight to Montego Bay in Jamaica.
Other long-haul cancellations today include one Singapore Airlines flight, WestJet to Calgary and two flights to Delhi – one on Air Canada, the other on Air India.
Turkish Airlines and Brussels Airlines have also cancelled flights to their hubs, Istanbul and Brussels.
Heathrow Airport ‘open and fully operational’
07:29
,
Namita Singh
A spokesperson for Heathrow said early this morning that the airport was "open and fully operational", adding: "Teams across the airport continue to do everything they can to support passengers impacted by yesterday's outage at an off-airport power substation.
"We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today's schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport.
"Passengers travelling today should check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flight."
Flights begin landing at Heathrow after mass disruption
07:09
,
Namita Singh
Flights have begun landing at Heathrow as it aims to return to normal operation today after the airport was shut over a loss of power, with restrictions on overnight flights temporarily lifted.
Flights resumed at the west London airport yesterday evening following hours of closure after a blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening.
Heathrow Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye told reporters on Friday afternoon: "We expect to be back in full operation (tomorrow), so 100 per cent operation as a normal day.
"(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There's no reason to come earlier."
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, British Airways (BA) flight BA56 from Johannesburg, South Africa was the first regular passenger flight to land at Heathrow since Thursday evening, touching down at 4.37am.
BA, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.
Government temporarily lifts restrictions on overnight flights
06:48
,
Namita Singh
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
According to Heathrow's website, there is no formal ban on night flights but since the 1960s, the government has placed restrictions on them.
There is an annual limit of 5,800 night-time take-offs and landings between the hours of 11.30pm and 6am as well as a nightly limit, which caps the amount of noise the airport can make at night.
Passengers to face more delays as Heathrow aims to return to normal operation
06:41
Passengers will continue to face delays and cancellations as Heathrow aims to return to normal operation today after the airport was shut over a loss of power, with restrictions on overnight flights temporarily lifted.
Flights resumed at the west London airport yesterday evening following hours of closure after a blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening.
The Metropolitan Police are not treating the incident as suspicious and the London Fire Brigade's investigation is focusing on the electrical distribution equipment.
Heathrow Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye told reporters on yesterday afternoon: "We expect to be back in full operation (tomorrow), so 100 per cent operation as a normal day."(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There's no reason to come earlier."
But British Airways, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights at the airport today.
The airline would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals today but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
A spokesperson 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 per cent 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."
‘Dream birthday’ dashed by airport fire
06:36
,
Namita Singh
Ellen Deasy, 29, was surprised by her cousin Jenna with a holiday to Venice for her 30th birthday but had to settle on Portsmouth instead.
With dreams of gelato and gondoliers dashed by the Heathrow Airport fire, she told The Independent: “We woke up at about 3.30am and the first thing we saw were pictures of this fireball and the headlines.
“We were planning on riding the gondolas, eating some pasta and having some ice cream, but now we are going to Portsmouth.
“I was so excited. It would have been a dream birthday but now my thirties haven’t started in the way I hoped.”
Couple laments ruined dream holiday amid flight cancellation
06:17
,
Namita Singh
Among those whose holiday plans were ruined were Warwickshire couple Nicola and Justin Sidwell, who were set to fly off to Tokyo for a dream holiday.
“We’re now stuck in limbo,” Mr Sidwell told The Independent from the couple’s hotel room. “We have been sitting in our hotel waiting to hear something from British Airways since 5am. It is a nightmare.”
What rights do you have to flight compensation?
06:08
,
Namita Singh
Heathrow Airport on Friday experienced a complete shutdown due to a severe fire, disrupting hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Airlines are obligated to provide care for stranded passengers, including meals and accommodations, but are not required to offer compensation as the fire was beyond their control, writes Simon Calder.
How many passengers were affected?
06:00
,
Namita Singh
Up to 291,000 passengers were set to fly from Heathrow airport yesterday, with 1,330 flights scheduled throughout the day, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Up to 665 departures were scheduled, equating to over 145,094 seats, and 669 flights were due to arrive, equating to 145,836 seats.
British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle said the event would have a huge impact on customers in the coming days.
“To give you an idea of the scale of disruption we face which we’re working to minimise, today we were due to operate more than 670 flights carrying around 107,000 customers, with similar numbers planned over the weekend,” he said.
EasyJet said it was putting larger aircraft on key routes on Friday and over the weekend to provide additional seats to help customers affected by the Heathrow closure.
Ryanair has also put on extra flights from Dublin to London Stansted "to rescue passengers affected by today’s Heathrow closure”.
What is the economic effect of Heathrow shutdown?
05:51
,
Namita Singh
Thousands of passengers had their flights cancelled or altered mid-flight after a massive fire ripped through an electricity substation near Heathrow, forcing the airport to close for more than 15 hours.
Economist Stephen Rooney said: “In terms of what's at stake, at the conservative end, we estimate a potential loss of tourism revenue amounting to £4.8m per day.
“We can estimate this loss based on typical inbound arrivals volumes that come to the UK through Heathrow and the average daily spend of those travelling.”
He said his estimates did not include the potential loss of earnings of airport and airline staff, lost income for airport retail and ancillary services such as airport taxis.
Insurance payouts, lost money for affected passengers and other costs to airlines involved would further inflate the damage.
ICYMI: What caused the fire at Healthrow Airport?
05:39
,
Namita Singh
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.”
Young band returning to UK fear they will miss exams after getting caught up in Heathrow Airport chaos
05:38
,
Namita Singh
Stranded passengers find innovative ways to workaround Heathrow shutdown
05:32
,
Namita Singh
Phillip Kizun had to devise a new route yesterday after his flight from London to Dublin was cancelled due to a power outage at Heathrow Airport.
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.
Some Heathrow-bound flights were forced to turn back midair, while others never departed, causing widespread confusion and frustration.
While some travellers, like Mr Kizun, managed to find alternative routes, others were left in limbo or abandoned their journeys altogether.
Airline shares fall as Heathrow outage causes travel chaos
04:58
,
Namita Singh
Shares in many airlines fell on Friday.Aviation experts said the last time European airports experienced disruption on such a large scale was the 2010 Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that grounded some 100,000 flights.
They warned that some passengers forced to land in Europe may have to stay in transit lounges if they lack the paperwork to leave the airport.
Prices at hotels around Heathrow jumped, with booking sites offering rooms for £500 ($645), roughly five times the normal price levels.
Police said after an initial assessment, they were not treating the incident at the power substation as suspicious, although enquiries remained ongoing. London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
Heathrow and London's other major airports have been hit by other outages in recent years, most recently by an automated gate failure and an air traffic system meltdown, both in 2023.
Airport closure to have ‘huge’ impact on fliers as Heathrow shirks off responsibility for liabilities
04:48
,
Namita Singh
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted by Britain's Department of Transport to ease congestion, but British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle said the closure was set to have a "huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days”.
Virgin Atlantic said it expected to operate "a near full schedule" with limited cancellations on Saturday but that the situation remained dynamic and all flights would be kept under continuous review.
Airlines including JetBlue, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Delta Air Lines, Qantas, United Airlines, British Airways and Virgin were diverted or returned to their origin airports in the wake of the closure, according to data from flight analytics firm Cirium.
Meanwhile, Heathrow Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye said he expected the airport to be back "in full operation" today.
Asked who would pay for the disruption, he said there were "procedures in place", adding "we don't have liabilities in place for incidents like this".
Report: Heathrow closure to cost UK economy up to £4.8m in lost tourism
04:30
,
Alex Croft
A fire that shut down Heathrow airport due to a major power outage will cost the UK economy millions of pounds - even as flights resume on Friday night.
Some 1,351 flights were either cancelled or forced to land elsewhere, affecting thousands of tourists and many businesses, even beyond the airlines who suffered the first impact on Friday morning.
While putting a precise figure on the impact of such an unexpected occurrence is difficult, the usual flow of inbound passengers to the airport provide scope for at least some guidance of the damage which might be done, as Oxford Economics told The Independent.
“In terms of what's at stake, at the conservative end, we estimate a potential loss of tourism revenue amounting to £4.8 million per day,” economist Stephen Rooney said.
“We can estimate this loss based on typical inbound arrivals volumes that come to the UK through Heathrow and the average daily spend of those travelling.”
Karl Matchett with the full report:
'Shameful': Traveller criticises lack of comfort in Heathrow as he waits 30 hours for next flight
04:20
,
Alex Croft
Alex Udenba missed a day of his holiday to see family and friends in Nigeria because his flight was cancelled.
Mr Udenba, a retail worker in London, has not gone to the country in three years and was hoping to spend a month there.
The 41-year-old has been in the airport since 1am on Friday, and will be there until his new flight at 7.30am on Saturday.
He said: “Heathrow Airport, a world-class airport, doesn’t have a place for people to sit down when things like this happen. It is very shameful. It’s not anyone’s fault this happened, but at least we should be looked after.”
In pictures: Passengers stranded after mass flight cancellations on Friday
04:15
,
Alex Croft
Global travel chaos leaves airlines scrambling to fix flight schedules
04:05
,
Namita Singh
The global aviation industry was scrambling on Saturday to reroute passengers and fix battered airline schedules after a huge fire at an electrical substation serving London's Heathrow Airport forced closure of Europe's busiest air hub.
Some flights resumed on Friday evening, but the shuttering of the world's fifth-busiest airport for most of the day left tens of thousands searching for scarce hotel rooms and replacement seats while airlines tried to return jets and crew to bases.
The industry, facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds and a likely fight over who should pay, questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail without backup.
"It is a clear planning failure by the airport," said Willie Walsh, head of global airlines body IATA, who, as former head of British Airways, has for years been a fierce critic of the crowded hub.
The airport had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in Britain and across Europe, while many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure.
Heathrow hotels charge stranded passengers up to £650 for rooms after airport closure
04:01
,
Alex Croft
Senior reporter Alex Ross investigates:
Hotels have been accused of profiteering with rooms near Heathrow Airport costing £650 on Friday as hundreds of passengers have been left stranded by the closure of the grounding of all flights.
Louis, a video producer who was due to fly to Dublin, accused nearby hotels of increasing their prices, with major chains charging more than £500 for accommodation on Friday night.
The 28-year-old, who only provided his first name, was forced to search for a new hotel in case Saturday’s rescheduled flight was cancelled again.
“They’ve actually doubled, if not, in some cases, tripled the prices of the rooms based on what’s going on, which is absolutely absurd. They’re profiting off of people’s misfortunes in this. I don’t know how that’s allowed,” he said.
A search showed the cheapest room at Best Western London Heathrow Ariel Hotel was a executive double room priced at £650 for one night on Friday - the same room is £72.25 next week, 28 March.
At Holiday Inn London - Heathrow Bath Road, the cheapest rooms - a queen standard, single standard and standard - were all priced at £541 on Friday. A week later, the rooms cost £87. The chain’s Holiday Inn Express London Heathrow T4 is sold out. Read more here.
Around 200,000 passengers hit by airport closure
03:47
,
Namita Singh
Around 200,000 passengers have been affected by the closure of Europe's busiest airport.
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.
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".
London Fire Brigade (LFB) received the first reports of the fire at 11.23pm on Thursday, forcing the closure of the airport.
Some 120 aircraft heading to the airport at that time were forced to either divert or return to their point of origin, measures which saw passengers on board Qantas flights to Heathrow from Singapore and Perth diverted to Paris before taking buses to London.
Counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police have been leading the investigation into the cause of the fire, which did not result in any casualties at the scene.
"After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although inquiries do remain ongoing," Commander Simon Messinger said.
Thousands of homes were left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the substation caught fire.
‘We cannot guard ourselves 100%’
03:09
,
Namita Singh
After Heathrow Airport was shut over loss of power, Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye said 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 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".
After announcing early yesterday that it would be closed until 11.59pm, Heathrow later reopened with a focus on repatriation flights for passengers diverted to other airports in Europe.
Government temporarily lifts restrictions on overnight flights
03:06
,
Namita Singh
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
According to Heathrow's website, there is no formal ban on night flights but since the 1960s, the government has placed restrictions on them.
There is an annual limit of 5,800 night-time take-offs and landings between the hours of 11.30pm and 6am as well as a nightly limit, which caps the amount of noise the airport can make at night.
'You have to be tough, but at least it is safe in Heathrow'
03:05
,
Alex Croft
Janice Ramirez, 49, was on a layover flight from Singapore to the Cayman Islands for her work as a travel agent.
Her flight was diverted from Heathrow to Gatwick. She was meant to arrive at Heathrow at 9am but arrived by train at 4pm, and is now trying to book a hotel to wait for her Monday flight.
Ms Ramirez said: “A lot of people were requesting hotels and all the hotels around here are booked up. My sister is helping me book a hotel, I think it will be a bit further out. It’s not OK sitting here at this time, but you have to be tough. At least it is safe here.”
Passengers to face more delays as Heathrow aims to return to normal operation
02:56
,
Namita Singh
Passengers will continue to face delays and cancellations as Heathrow aims to return to normal operation today after the airport was shut over a loss of power, with restrictions on overnight flights temporarily lifted.
Flights resumed at the west London airport yesterday evening following hours of closure after a blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening.
The Metropolitan Police are not treating the incident as suspicious and the London Fire Brigade's investigation is focusing on the electrical distribution equipment.
Heathrow Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye told reporters on yesterday afternoon: "We expect to be back in full operation (tomorrow), so 100 per cent operation as a normal day.
"(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There's no reason to come earlier."
But British Airways, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85 per cent of its scheduled flights at the airport today.
The airline would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals today but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
A spokesperson 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 per cent 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."
Heathrow airport closure: Everything we know about the Hayes substation fire and effects of grounded flights
02:11
,
Alex Croft
Thousands of passengers had their flights cancelled or altered mid-flight after a massive fire ripped through an electricity substation near Heathrow, forcing the airport to close for more than 15 hours.
Up to 300,000 customers had been set to use Europe’s biggest airport on Friday, but 1,351 flights were disrupted by the blaze.
Despite initially saying it would be closed all day, Heathrow later announced some long-haul flights would restart during the evening.
The blaze erupted in Hayes, five miles north of the airport, leaving around 67,000 households suffering power cuts.
Read the full report:
Watch: Drone footage shows London electricity substation fire which has forced Heathrow Airport closure
01:15
,
Jane Dalton
We need to learn lessons, says transport secretary
00:20
,
Jane Dalton
The closure of Heathrow due to a substation fire is an “absolutely unprecedented situation”, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said.
“It’s been a situation that has been outside of Heathrow’s control.
“I certainly didn’t expect to wake up this morning and see that huge fire happening,” she said.
She thanked the emergency services for their response and the National Grid for getting power restored to the airport, as well as staff at Heathrow who have “worked tirelessly all day to get to a point today where flights are able to land again and where the airport hopes to resume full operations tomorrow”.
Asked what questions there are to answer about the incident, she said: “We need to understand what caused an incident of this magnitude at an electricity substation that is very close to a critical piece of national infrastructure.”
She 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”.
Saturday cancellations at Heathrow hit 100
Friday 21 March 2025 23:45
,
Alex Croft
Travel correspondent Simon Calder reports:
British Airways has revealed it is likely to cancel 90 flights to and from London Heathrow on Saturday – despite an assurance from the airport's chief executive that a "full service" would operate.
A BA spokesperson 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."
With around 600 flights due to arrive and depart on Saturday, that represents 90 cancellations.
British Airways also says: "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.
“Our focus is on getting our customers and colleagues to where they need to be as quickly and as safely possible. We will be contacting all affected customers to advise them of their options, and we thank them for bearing with as work through these solutions."
In addition, a number of other airlines have grounded flights to and from Heathrow, with these key outbound cancellations:
- Air Canada to Delhi.
- Air India to Delhi.
- American Airlines to New York JFK.
- Brussels Airlines to Brussels.
- Turkish Airlines to Istanbul.
- Virgin Atlantic to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
- WestJet to Calgary.
British Airways warns 'huge impact' of Heathrow shutdown will last 'days'
Friday 21 March 2025 23:40
,
Alex Croft
British Airways has warned its services will be severely impacted over the coming days after the closure of Heathrow Airport.
Chief executive Sean Doyle described the situation as “unprecedented”, with more than 100,000 of its customers on board some 670 flights being affected on Friday.
In a video message to passengers on Friday afternoon, Mr Doyle said British Airways had “been forced to effectively ground our flying operation” due to the incident, cancelling every short-haul and the majority of long-haul flights scheduled for Friday.
He said: “This is an unprecedented situation, and we have not seen a closure of Heathrow of this scale for many years.
“Unfortunately, it will have a huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days.
“Our colleagues are working extremely hard to support our customers with the most up to date information in a live and evolving situation.”
