Heathrow Airport aims for return to full service on Saturday

By Deutsche Welle (World News) | Created at 2025-03-21 17:01:06 | Updated at 2025-03-21 23:21:11 6 hours ago

Britain's National Grid said it reconfigured the network around a substation and restored power to the parts of Heathrow Airport connected to it on an interim basis.

Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports, was completely shut down after a large fire at a nearby electrical substation knocked out power.

What has Heathrow Airport said?

On Friday afternoon, the airport said it would resume some flights and hoped regular operations would begin again on Saturday.

"Our teams have worked tirelessly since the incident to ensure a speedy recovery," the airport posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

"We’re now safely able to restart flights, prioritizing repatriation and relocation of aircraft."

"We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly," it said.

The airport urged passengers to avoid the airport unless advised to do so by their airlines.

"Our priority remains the safety of our passengers and those working at the airport. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this incident."

The London Fire Brigade earlier announced that the electricity substation fire that broke out Thursday night and shut down the airport was under control.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a social media post that he was receiving regular updates and that he was in close contact with partners on the ground.

Britain's Heathrow airport shuts down after fire

Firefighters and police investigate cause of fire

Jonathan Smith, deputy commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, later said the brigade was working with police to investigate the cause of the fire.

Police said there was so far no indication of foul play in the blaze that shut down Heathrow, but counterterrorism detectives are leading the investigation into its cause.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called the fire at a substation that shut down London's Heathrow Airport "catastrophic" and said it also knocked out the hub's backup generator.

According to Willie Walsh, head of the airline industry's trade association IATA, a power outage that led to the complete closure of London's Heathrow Airport was a "clear planning failure" by the aviation hub.

"Firstly, 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's Director General wrote on X.

Planes on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport

Flights being diverted worldwide

Scores of flights were already being diverted to land at other airports.

According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, at the time of the airport's closure, "120 aircraft were in the air that will be diverting to alternate airports or returning to their origins."

A Qantas flight arriving from Perth, Australia, was diverted to Paris' Charles de Gaulle while a United Airlines flight from New York was due to land in Ireland's Shannon instead, news agencies reported.

Some flights from the US were turning around mid-air and returning to their point of departure, according to the Reuters news agency.

Other flights from as far afield as Lagos, Johannesburg and Singapore were being diverted to nearby Gatwick Airport.

Heathrow handles more than 80 million passengers a year.

Transformer blaze to blame

Thousands of homes saw their power get knocked out and some 150 people were evacuated after a transformer at the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in Hayes, around 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) from Heathrow.