64 Posts

Heathrow Airport chief executive Thomas Woldbye said Friday that the airport’s backup systems “worked the way they should,” as he sought to defend the actions of one of the world’s busiest airports.

In an interview, Woldbye said that London’s Heathrow Airport has three electricity substations, each with a “backup transformer.”

But, the airport chief said, to divert to another substation following a failure in supply, the airport has to “restructure our power supply,” adding that this takes time.

Asked whether Heathrow’s main supply and backup supply were in the same place, Woldbye said: “We have three (substations), so two of them were not lost, but each of them have a backup supply, and yes, the backup transformer for this supply was also lost.”

Despite the electricity blackout, Woldbye said that the airport’s backup systems “worked the way they should,” adding “this just takes time when we have an incident of this major severity.”

Woldbye said that with “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,” he said. He added that the closure of the airport was not taken lightly and was only done due to severe safety concerns.

The head of Heathrow Airport said he anticipates the airport will be fully running by tomorrow morning, after a power outage due to a fire nearby caused the closure of Europe’s busiest airport.

“Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day,” Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s chief executive, said Friday.

Asked about whether passengers due to fly tomorrow should adjust their travel plans, the CEO said they should continue as normal.

“There’s no reason to come earlier. They should be coming to the airport as they were planning to do otherwise,” Woldbye said.

A British Airway jet landed at Heathrow, the first to land after a fire caused one of the world’s busiest airports to grind to a complete standstill.

A CNN team on the ground witnessed the jet landing on Friday evening after a quick trip from Gatwick Airport, located a mere 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) away.

The Airbus A380-800 jet — the world’s largest commercial passenger aircraft — had a brisk 17-minute journey, data from flight-tracking site FlightAware showed.

Earlier, British Airways said that it had been given clearance by Heathrow Airport to depart eight long-haul flights starting at 7 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) after the airport said it was resuming some flights. Destinations include Johannesburg, Singapore, Riyadh, Cape Town, Sydney and Buenos Aires.

The airport’s chief said Heathrow will be prioritizing incoming flights that have been stranded in Europe, before a few flights take off in the evening.

Elizabeth Blake-Thomas told CNN that she and her daughter flew from Los Angeles to New York on Wednesday evening and were supposed to board their Delta flight to London the following night.

“We landed at 4 p.m. and were sitting by the gate for our Heathrow flight, and as time passed, we were checking the news and saw a CNN report about Heathrow Airport,” Blake-Thomas said.

For over 10 hours, she said they waited with other passengers, and by 12:30 a.m., they were informed that their flight had been canceled.

“By 2 a.m., the line was still not moving,” Blake-Thomas said. “There were probably 300 of us in the Delta line trying to find out if we could rebook or get a place to stay.”

She noted that her service animal became a source of comfort for others dealing with the chaos.

“People started to approach me and my dog because they just needed some emotional support,” Blake-Thomas said.

Blake-Thomas mentioned that they were able to get rebooked onto another flight for Saturday, but because of her service animal, she hopes they can still fly together.

“The dog is assigned to a specific flight with all the necessary paperwork, and the injection she needs for her tapeworm only lasts for a limited time,” Blake-Thomas explained. “So we’re just hoping that the flight we’ve been rescheduled for on Saturday night will work out.”

A CNN team on the ground right outside Heathrow Airport reported hearing plane engines roaring as the travel hub prepares to resume some flights.

There’s been an uptick in activity, with safety cars driving around flashing yellow lights. Hangers in CNN’s line of sight have their lights on, and some flood lights have been turned on as well.

CNN also saw a small propeller plane flying above the airport — a rare sight on any day with normal operations.

The head of Heathrow Airport described Friday’s closure of the airport as “an incident of major severity” as he apologized to passengers for the disruption.

“I like to stress that this is 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,” CEO Thomas Woldbye said in a statement Friday.

“We will prioritize incoming flights that have been stranded in Europe so we can get as many passengers into the country as we possibly can. After that, a few flights will be taking off during the evening, and that is about it,” Woldbye added.

British Airways said Friday that it has been given clearance by London’s Heathrow Airport to depart eight long-haul flights starting at 7 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) after the airport said it was resuming some flights.

“We are now urgently contacting customers to let them know so they can make their way to the airport from 5pm,” a British Airways spokesperson said in a statement.

The destinations of the flights include:

• Johannesburg
• Singapore
• Riyadh
• Cape Town
• Sydney
• Buenos Aires

The head of British Airways warned the “unprecedented” disruption will likely continue for many days to come.

“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,” Sean Doyle, CEO and chairman of British Airways, said in a statement Friday.

Earlier on Friday, British Airways said it was reviewing impacts to its long-haul schedule. It added that it had canceled all short-haul flights to Heathrow Airport.

The head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has slammed Heathrow Airport’s closure today as “yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travelers and airlines.”

“How is it that critical infrastructure—of national and global importance—is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative. If that is the case—as it seems—then it is a clear planning failure by the airport,” IATA director general Willie Walsh, the former boss of British Airways, said in a statement on Friday.

The IATA represents some 340 airlines comprising over 80% of global air traffic.

“We must find a fairer allocation of passenger care costs than airlines alone picking up the tab when infrastructure fails. Until that happens, Heathrow has very little incentive to improve,” Walsh added.

London’s Heathrow Airport says it will restart some flights later today, beginning with “repatriation flights” for passengers diverted to other airports across Europe after a major power outage sparked huge disruption.

“We’re pleased to say we’re now safely able to begin some flights later today. Our first flights will be repatriation flights and relocating aircraft,” a Heathrow spokesperson said in a statement.

“Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so. We will now work with the airlines on repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe.”

“We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly,” the spokesperson said.

“As the busiest airport in Europe, Heathrow uses as much energy as a small city, therefore getting back to a full and safe operation takes time,” the spokesperson added. “We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this incident.”

Earlier on Friday, a Heathrow spokesperson told CNN that even after power is restored, the airport would need to conduct safety checks. CNN understands that the airport has been undertaking tests in order to open safely as soon as possible.

A stranded passenger described her shock as her flight from Delhi to London was turned around mid-flight following news of the shutdown at Heathrow Airport.

Lucy Adler was returning home from a weeklong business trip in India when her plans were scrapped by the closure of Europe’s busiest airport.

“I’m a mom and I’ve got two young kids, so I was just desperate to kind of get home to them. My plan was supposed to be, ‘oh I’d be home in time to pick them up from school today,’ and obviously that didn’t work out,” Adler told CNN’s Zain Asher on Friday.

“About halfway through, the captain woke everyone up and started telling us he had an announcement, there’d been a fire … And we were all expecting him to say, so we’re going to land at a different London airport or a different UK airport,” Adler said.

“Then he said, so we’re turning round and we’re going back to Delhi. Everyone was just so shocked,” Adler continued.

The fire — which is now under control — occurred in an electrical substation in the town of Hayes, just a few miles from the airport, which disrupted the local power supply

Adler was stuck on the tarmac for 90 minutes alongside her fellow passengers before they were allowed to disembark the plane. Adler’s airline, Virgin, provided her with a night’s accommodation in Delhi following the inconvenience, she detailed.

The lights inside the main building of Heathrow Terminal 4 have switched back on, according to PA news agency reporters on the ground. The elevators in the Terminal 4 parking lot are also back in operation.

It comes after British utility company National Grid said Friday afternoon that it had restored power to “parts of Heathrow” on an interim basis, but the airport said it is unclear when its supply would be “reliably restored” and is still urging passengers not to come.

In an earlier news briefing on Friday morning, the London Fire Brigade said there was no power at Terminal 2 or Terminal 4, suggesting that Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 likely did have power at the time.

Disruption at London’s Heathrow Airport may last up to a week before returning to normal, according to Paul Charles, CEO of the PC Agency, a leading travel consultancy based in London.

“I would expect (Heathrow) by tomorrow to have some power back on stream, but the longer this goes on, the more the costs mount up, the more disruption for passengers, of course, and I would expect it to be a week at this rate before things are back to normal,” Charles told CNN’s Becky Anderson.

“You will not be able to go back to all systems operating as normal in one fell swoop,” he said.

Charles estimated costs of $25 to 35 million of losses for airlines affected by the airport shutdown. “That is based on all airlines being affected. … This is every single airline that flies in and out of Heathrow with 290,000 passengers, both in and outbound during a 24-hour period,” he said.

Costs include planes being out of place, extra fuel needed to move the planes and crew around, plus extra costs for passengers including car hire and extra hotel accommodation, Charles detailed.

Eurostar, the company that operates train services between London and Paris, is adding four additional train services today to support travelers impacted by the closure of Heathrow Airport.

“This afternoon, we will operate two additional services from London to Paris and two from Paris to London to provide alternative travel options,” Eurostar said in a statement. “We understand the challenges faced by those impacted by the incident at Heathrow, and we are committed to helping where we can by providing additional travel options.”

The additional trains only had a few seats left on the Eurostar website as of this writing, with the cheapest ticket going for about $280 (215 pounds).

British utility company National Grid says that it restored power to “parts of Heathrow” on an interim basis, but the airport said it is unclear when its supply would be “reliably restored” and is still urging passengers not to come.

Heathrow closed early Friday after a massive fire at the nearby North Hyde power substation in Hayes, west London.

“The network has been reconfigured to restore all customers impacted, including the ability to resupply the parts of Heathrow airport that are connected to North Hyde,” National Grid said in a statement in which it apologized for the disruption. “This is an interim solution while we carry out further work at North Hyde to return the substation and our network to normal operation.”

“We are continuing to work closely with all stakeholders to manage this incident, and are focused on returning to normal resilience levels as soon as possible,” National Grid added.

What Heathrow is saying: Meanwhile, the airport said in a statement that it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”

“We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” a spokesperson said, according to PA Media.

The reason for the apparent contradiction between the two statements was not immediately clear.

In an earlier news briefing on Friday morning, the London Fire Brigade said there was no power at Terminal 2 or Terminal 4, suggesting that Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 likely did have power at the time. (Terminal 1 is no longer in use.)

London’s Heathrow Airport handled a total of 482,143 aircraft last year, aviation authority statistics show, including 479,506 passenger planes and 2,637 cargo aircraft.

That amounts to about 1,300 combined takeoffs and landings a day.

Among those flights, 56% were by British operators, 18% by European Union operators and 26% by other overseas operators, according to statistics from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. There were also about 1,000 charter flights in 2024.

Heathrow is Europe’s busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic and by far the busiest airport in the United Kingdom.

Heathrow is also a major cargo hub, and served 234 destinations in more than 85 nations last year, according to its website. In 2023, it processed nearly half (48%) of all cargo in the UK, with 198.5 billion pounds ($256.6 billion) worth of goods passing through.

When looking only at international flights, Heathrow is the second-busiest in the world, behind Dubai International airport, according to statistics compiled by travel analytics firm OAG Aviation.

British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “reassured” that Heathrow was “working tirelessly to reopen the airport as soon as possible” after speaking to airport officials on Friday.

In a statement, Alexander said she “spoke with Heathrow Airport’s chief executive to hear the latest on the unprecedented power outage.”

Alexander also thanked everyone involved in responding to the incident, “particularly the emergency workers who have worked to contain the fire and keep everyone safe.”

The secretary appreciated “how disruptive this situation is for passengers” and reiterated the advice that travelers should avoid going to the airport until they hear otherwise.

The secretary also advised travelers to check their consumer rights for delayed flights with the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority.

London’s Gatwick, the second busiest airport in the UK, has picked up some of the slack from Heathrow’s shutdown on Friday.

In the bustling departures terminal, CNN spoke to exhausted passengers who had been on early morning flights to Heathrow from long-haul destinations that were diverted to Gatwick at the last minute.

A couple traveling from Thailand to Belfast via Singapore found themselves “limping along” in Gatwick airport for hours Friday morning after their flight was diverted.

Susan Higgins, 70, from Northern Ireland, and her partner Alan, both have mobility issues; they were on a British Airways flight from Singapore when they got news their flight to Heathrow would be diverted to Paris, Frankfurt or Gatwick.

Fortunately, she said, they ended up at Gatwick, but on arrival they had to line up for three hours to get assistance to book another flight to their destination, Belfast. Neither of them own smartphones, so they cannot simply book themselves another flight.

“I have walking difficulties, and I had to walk the whole way round to speak to British Airways,” Higgins said. “We’ve been traveling since Thursday. … We’ve been here since 5 a.m. this morning,” she said. “We’re both limping along with this luggage.” Nevertheless, she joked, “it’s been an adventure.”

Pier Neumann and his work colleagues were traveling from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Seattle. They were due to land at Heathrow to get their connecting flight to the US but ended up at Gatwick.

“We’ve been here since 4 a.m. this morning and finally we’ve got some answers,” Neumann said as he pushed his luggage to a waiting bus. Some passengers like him are now being bussed to hotels near Heathrow airport to wait for information on when their onward flights will depart.

British Airways canceled all short-haul flights to London Heathrow Airport today in the wake of the power substation fire, but the airline said in a statement that it is still reviewing impacts to its long-haul schedule.

“Our teams are currently working hard to review our long-haul schedule as well as the implications for our schedule for tomorrow and beyond,” the spokesperson added. “We will update our customers as soon as possible and we continue to ask them not to travel to Heathrow Airport, but to check on ba.com for the latest flight information.”

The airline is advising all customers not to travel to the airport, echoing calls from British authorities. It is also working to contact all affected customers to allow rebooking options or a full refund.

All customers booked to travel to or from Heathrow between Friday and Sunday will have the option to rebook for free to a later travel date, according to the airline.

A huge fire knocked out power at London Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, late on Thursday night, stranding passengers on every continent and threatening the global aviation industry with days of delays and massive financial losses.

Here’s what you need to know:

• A blaze sparks chaos: A transformer at an electrical substation in the west London suburb of Hayes caught fire just before midnight on Thursday, according to the London Fire Brigade (LFB). It raged through the night before firefighters got it under control on Friday — but by then, it had caused chaos at Heathrow and far beyond. The substation supplies the airport and the fire caused a “significant power outage,” Heathrow said, announcing it would be entirely shut down on Friday.
• Days of disruption: Heathrow warned that the shutdown would impact travel in the coming days, but the effects have been felt worldwide: More than 100 planes were diverted or canceled by midday local time on Friday, according to flight-tracking websites. Heathrow had been expecting arrivals from Sydney, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Johannesburg, New York, Miami and many other cities on Friday.
• Counter-terror police investigate: London’s counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation into the fire at the electrical substation near Heathrow, “given the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure.” A police spokesperson said there was “no indication of foul play” but detectives “retain an open mind” over the cause.
• Hundreds of millions of dollars possibly lost: Shukor Yusof, the founder of Singapore-based Endau Analytics, an advisory firm that focuses on the aviation industry, told CNN the financial losses from the shutdown could be in the “hundreds of millions of pounds.” The fallout “will cause chaos, undoubtedly, for the weekend and into next week because they have to resolve all those flights that couldn’t come in, all those problems that have piled up because of this shutdown,” he said.
• One of the world’s busiest airports: Heathrow flies up to 291,000 passengers a day, and it’s the base for 90 different airlines. Overall, it was the world’s fourth-busiest airport in 2023, according to the most recent data, with a record-breaking 83.9 million passengers passing through last year.

Currently, there is minimal impact to operations at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, according to airport officials following a widespread power outage at London’s Heathrow Airport

Among the world’s busiest airports year after year, Atlanta is believed to have had just two flights impacted so far, Andy Goebil, the deputy director of policy and communications, told CNN.

He added that Delta is the primary airline that has been affected. CNN has reached out Delta Airlines for comment.

Delta issued a travel waiver due the situation at Heathrow.

A CNN crew at the international terminal saw operations appear to be business as usual. Inside the terminal, departures scheduled for London Heathrow for later this evening were listed as being on time.