London’s Heathrow Airport partially resumed operation with full service expected to resume on Saturday following an “unprecedented” power outage caused at the facility by a nearby substation fire.
Around 2,00,000 passengers were affected as flights were grounded throughout Friday while inbound flights were diverted to other airports in Europe.
The airport’s chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, apologised to the stranded passengers, adding that the disruption was “as big as it gets for our airport” and that it could not guard itself “100%,” reported BBC.
The Met Police have ruled out any suspicion linked to the fire.
Downing Street also acknowledged the incident saying there are “questions to answer”, reported The Guardian. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was aware of the situation in Heathrow adding he was receiving regular updates and was in “close contact with partners on the ground.”
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Several Airlines Resume Flights
Hours after the disruption, several airlines announced that they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow including British Airways, Air Canada and United Airlines.
British Airways announced that eight of its long-haul flights were cleared to fly out of Heathrow on Friday evening and it was “urgently contacting customers to let them know”.
A spokesperson for the airport said the first flights were focused on “repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe… and relocating aircraft”.
An Air India flight bound for Heathrow returned to Mumbai following the closure of the airport while another flight from Delhi was diverted to Frankfurt. Other flights to and from Heathrow, the UK’s busiest facility were cancelled.
‘Incident Of Major Severity’
Woldby stressed that the Friday incident was 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,” he said.
On the question of whether there is a weak point in the airport’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.
“I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport.” “This is unprecedented,” he added.
Woldby further said that the airport is expected to return to “100% operation” on Saturday.
A probe has begun into the incident with investigators focusing on the “electrical distribution equipment”, said the Met Police.
