Flights at Britain’s Heathrow airport resumed late on Friday after a fire knocked out the power supply and closed Europe’s busiest airport for the day, stranding many passengers and triggering global travel chaos.
Heathrow said its workers worked diligently to reopen the world’s fifth-busiest airport, which was forced to close altogether on Thursday night due to a massive fire that devoured a nearby substation, with travelers advised to stay away.
According to reports, the airport was scheduled to accommodate 1,351 aircraft on Friday, carrying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in the UK and around Europe, with many long-haul flights returning to their place of departure.
According to Heathrow, there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mostly focused on relocating aircraft and bringing planes into London.
“Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, to 100% operation as a normal day.
“What I’d like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected … we are very sorry about all the inconvenience,” Heathrow chief executive, Thomas Woldbye said.
According to the police, after an initial assessment they were not treating the incident as suspicious, although enquiries remained ongoing.
London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
The closure not only caused misery for travellers but provoked anger from airlines, which questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail.
The industry is now facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds, and a likely fight over who should pay.
Woldbye said back-up systems and procedures had worked as they should.
“This power supply is a bit of a weak point. But of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them,” he added.
