London: Hundreds of thousands of passengers faced flight cancellations at Europe’s busiest travel hub after a fire knocked out power to London’s Heathrow Airport, forcing it to close for the day.
At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, including several from US cities that were cancelled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.
Heathrow Airport says it doesn’t know when power will be restored and expects disruption to last for days after an electrical substation fire nearby.
The airport said in a statement it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”
It said it expects “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”
Heathrow earlier said the airport is not expected to reopen until Saturday.
While the cause of the fire that shut down Heathrow Airport is still unclear, analysts say the incident raises concerns about the UK’s ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters that damage critical infrastructure such as communications and power networks.
It’s particularly worrisome given recent comments by Britain’s security services that Russia is conducting a reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe, said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank focused on security and democracy in Europe.
“The UK’s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won’t happen again,” Mendoza said.
“I mean, if one fire can shut down Heathrow’s primary systems and then apparently the backup systems as well, it tells you something’s badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters,” he added.
The Heathrow disruption weighed on shares of European airlines, which posted declines that outpaced the fall in broader main stock indexes on Friday.
Shares of International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways, were down 1.4 per cent after falling as much as 3 per cent in early trading.
Shares of Lufthansa, which operates Germany’s biggest carrier as well as Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and others, fell 1.3 per cent. Air France-KLM, which operates the main carriers in France the Netherlands, slid 1.3 per cent.
German leisure and tourism company TUI, which owns five airlines including one that serves the British market, slid 1.8 per cent.
Other European airlines that don’t operate at Heathrow were also dragged down by the negative sentiment. Wizz Air shares declined 1.4 per cent, easyJet was down 0.7 per cent and Ryanair dipped 0.8.
The British government says “clearly there are questions to answer” about how a single fire could shut down Europe’s busiest airport.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there must be a rigorous investigation to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again”.
Tom Wells said the most pressing task is to extinguish the fire, which is still burning on Friday. He said that “at the moment the priority is to deal with the incident in hand”.
He said “it’s very premature” to speculate on the cause of the blaze.
Flight operations remained normal in the United States on Friday despite the Heathrow fire, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Delta Airlines has issued a travel waiver through Sunday for customers who need to rebook their flights due to the Heathrow fire, a spokesperson said in a statement.
The company cancelled 10 flights scheduled to depart from Heathrow on Friday.
Police say there is so far no indication of foul play in blaze that shut Heathrow but counterterror detectives leading the investigation into its cause.
The Metropolitan Police force says that is because of the location of the electrical substation fire and its impact on critical national infrastructure.
The force says counterterrorism command has “specialist resources and capabilities” that can help find the cause quickly.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he is receiving regular updates on the fire that has shut down Heathrow Airport, as he thanked the emergency services tacking the blaze.
Starmer posted on X: “I know the situation in Heathrow is causing distress and disruption, especially for those travelling or without power in their homes. I’m receiving regular updates and I’m in close contact with partners on the ground. Thanks to our emergency workers for keeping people safe.”
