Thousands of Flights Cancelled Due to Unusually Long Shutdown

Flights at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) were brought to a standstill on March 21 due to a fire at a nearby electrical substation. Some operations were able to pick back up around 14 hours later, but enough damage had been done to pin cancellations and delays on thousands of passengers.

"This is an unprecedented situation, and we have not seen a closure of Heathrow of this scale for many years," remarked British Airways CEO Sean Doyle. "Unfortunately, it will have a huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days."

At around 11:23 pm on March 20, emergency operators were dispatched to a fire in Hayes, just a couple miles northeast of Europe’s busiest airport. Five hours later, Heathrow Airport reported that it would be closing down until 11:59 the next day since it was experiencing a “significant power outage” from the fire.

Power was cut to hundreds of homes and almost 150 people were evacuated before, at 6:28 am, the fire was contained. Authorities noted that there were no signs of foul play, though a cause has yet to be named. 

The airport remained dark until 2:30 pm when Terminal 4 appeared to regain power and the National Grid found an ‘interim solution’. Flights were deemed safe to resume at 4:00 pm, focusing on “repatriation and relocation of aircraft." Full operation was expected to be restored by the next day.

No flights were let in or out of Heathrow in this period, with the first set of departures being released at around 5:00 pm and the first arrival touching down just after 6:00 pm.

Flight data shows that some 1,300 planes were expected to fly through Heathrow on March 21 for a total of nearly 250,000 passengers. Though the airport was able to reopen same-day, the 14-hour pause forced operators to cancel, divert, or delay all flights. United offered to flow passengers through nearby airports like Brussels or Amsterdam. Qantas took a more hands-on approach, diverting many passengers to Paris and getting them the rest of the way via a nine-hour bus trip.

FMI: www.heathrow.com