Heathrow airport reopens after closure triggers global travel chaos

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London: Heathrow airport has reopened after a fire at a nearby power substation, which forced it to close for a day, disrupt thousands of flights, rotate passengers around the world and led to travel chaos in several countries.

Heathrow said that after a massive fire near the airport on Thursday night, his teams worked hard to reopen the world’s fifth Basavist airport. Passengers were advised to stay away as all operations should be stopped.

The airport was about to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, including 291,000 passengers. However, the aircraft were diverted to the UK and other airports all over Europe, while long -distance flights returned to their departure points.

Heathrow said there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mainly to move the aircraft and bring the aircraft to London.

“Yesterday morning, we expect that as a normal day, 100 % of operations will return to full operation,” said Thomas Wold Bai, chief executive of Heathrow. “I want to apologize to many people whose journey has been affected. We are very sorry for all the troubles.”

Police said there was no indication of the ugly game, but anti -terrorism officers are leading the investigation because of their skill and the significant nature of infrastructure.

The closure not only caused frustration among the passengers but also created anger with the airlines, which questioned how such an important infrastructure could fail.

The airline industry now suffers the potential financial losses of millions of pounds, as well as its cost -effective disputes as well as an upcoming controversy.

“You think they will have an important backup power force,” a senior European airline executive told Reuters.

Heathrow’s Woldbaye defended the airport’s response, saying the backup system had worked as expected.

He acknowledged that “this (power supply) is a weak point.” But, of course, we cannot protect ourselves 100 % against every emergency, and this is one of them. “

When asked about financial responsibility, he said the procedure exists, but he added, “We do not have the dues in place of such incidents.”

British Minister for Transport Haidi Alexander said the situation was out of control.

“They have rapidly implemented their flexibility plans and worked with emergency respondents and airline operators,” he told reporters.

“There are no suggestions at the time of the game, but the investigation is in the open mind.”

Flights turned

According to the Flight Analytics Firm Serium data, Jet Blu, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Air Canada, Air India, Delta Airlines, Cantas, United Airlines, British Airways (IAG owned), was forced to return to its original airlines.

Several airlines, including US carriers, fell in response to disruption.

Aviation experts said that the last time European airports suffered such a massive barrier was during the 2010 Iceland volcanic ash cloud crisis, which founded about 100,000 flights.

When flights are resumed, it will take time before the operation returns to normal.

“We have a flight and cabin crew, as well as a plane, where it does not mean that they didn’t mean,” said Shawn Doyle, chief executive of British Airways.

“Unfortunately, this will have a significant impact on all our users in the coming days.”

The fire brigade said the cause of the fire was not yet known, but it confirmed that 25,000 liters of cooling oil was set on fire in the transformer of the substation. By the morning, the transformer was seen smoky, which was covered in a white firefighting foam.

Passengers trapped in London entered to make alternative travel arrangements when they suffered a long delay.

“This is incredibly pressure,” said Rubin Atri, 39, a professor from New York. “I’m worried about how much I will spend on fixing it.”

Hotel prices around Heathrow increased, some booking sites that offer rooms for $ 500 – five times higher than the usual rate.

A wake -up call

Airline executives, power engineers, and passengers have questioned how the UK’s main gateway for the world can be brought through a fire.

Heathrow, along with other major airports in London, have experienced previous closures in recent years, due to automatic gate failure in 2023 and a malfunction in the air traffic system.

Former British military intelligence officer, Philip Ingram, said the incident has exposed weaknesses in Britain’s critical infrastructure.

“This is a wake -up call,” he told Reuters. “There is no way to close Heathrows due to failure in a power substation.”

Wali Walsh, the head of the World Airline Body IATA and former British Airways chief, criticized Heathrow for disappointing passengers.

Heathrow said it contains diesel generators and uninterrupted power supply to supply electricity to the location to land the plane and evacuate passengers. Those systems run as expected. However, since the airport uses more and more energy like a small city, it said it could not completely maintain full operations on the backup system.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Cairo star said that the incident had been confirmed and confirmed that it would be a thorough investigation.