Flights have resumed at Heathrow Airport and a full service is expected on Saturday following an “unprecedented” loss of power caused by nearby a substation fire.
About 200,000 passengers were affected as flights were grounded throughout Friday, with inbound planes being diverted to other airports in Europe after flames ripped through the North Hydeplant in Hayes, west London, on Thursday evening.
The airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to stranded passengers and said the disruption was “as big as it gets for our airport” and that it could not guard itself “100%”.
The Met Police confirmed the fire was not believed to be suspicious.
The investigation will focus on the “electrical distribution equipment”, the force said.
British Airways announced eight of its long-haul flights had been cleared to leave Heathrow on Friday evening, and it was “urgently contacting customers to let them know”.
Restrictions on overnight flights have also been temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
Passengers have been advised to contact their airlines for the latest updates.
Mr Woldbye said that a back-up transformer had failed meaning systems had to be closed down in accordance with safety procedures so that power supplies could be restructured from two remaining substations to restore electricity enough to power the airport.
Several airlines announced they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow, including British Airways, Air Canada and United Airlines.
An airport spokesperson said the first flights were focused on “repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe… and relocating aircraft”.
Mr Woldbye said: “I’d like to stress that this has been an incident 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.”
Source: BBC
