London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest air travel hubs, was forced to shut down abruptly on Friday due to a massive fire at a nearby substation which caused a complete power outage. The fire, which started around 11:00 PM GMT on Thursday, sent enormous flames and thick plumes of smoke into the sky, leading to a full suspension of operations at the airport.
Authorities have not confirmed the cause of the fire, which involved 25,000 liters of cooling oil in the substation’s transformer. Despite the lack of immediate evidence of foul play, counter-terrorism officers are leading the investigation due to the critical nature of the affected infrastructure.
The closure of Heathrow has caused significant turmoil in global air traffic, similar in scale to the disruption caused by the Icelandic ash cloud in 2010, which grounded around 100,000 flights. Friday’s shutdown impacted approximately 1,351 scheduled flights and up to 291,000 passengers, with many flights diverted to alternative airports throughout Britain and Europe. Some long-haul flights were even forced to return to their points of origin.
Airlines and industry experts are now bracing for a substantial financial toll, with losses potentially running into tens of millions of pounds. There is also mounting concern over accountability and future prevention strategies, as industry leaders question the vulnerability of vital airport infrastructure.
As Heathrow remains closed, stranded passengers are faced with significant delays and the daunting task of rearranging their travel plans. The fire brigade has managed to control the blaze, dousing the site with firefighting foam, but the full extent of the damage and the duration of the airport’s closure remain uncertain.
Global flight schedules are set to be disrupted as aircraft and crews find themselves out of position, compelling airlines to quickly reorganize their networks.
Some European airports have seen Heathrow-bound flights diverted, as the following:
- Five such services landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Two had come from Singapore – a Qantas and a Singapore Airlines flight. The others were a Qantas flight from Perth in Australia, an Emirates one from Dubai and a RwandAir one from Kigali
- Seven flights have had to be diverted to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. They are Delta flights from Detroit, Boston, and Atlanta in the US, two Cathay Pacific flights from Hong Kong, a British Airways flight from Riyadh, and a Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur
- Frankfurt has seen six diverted planes land. These were a Singapore Airlines service from Singapore, an Air India flight from Delhi, a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain, an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi and two services from Doha – one a Qatar Airways service, and the other a British Airways one.
