Operations Resumes At Heathrow Airport after power outage disruptions

London’s Heathrow Airport has resumed full operations on Saturday, a day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a major power outage, disrupting Europe’s busiest airport and affecting global travel.

This announcement is contained on their official social media handle of the Airport on Saturday.

The outage, which occurred on Friday, led to the suspension of flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and scrambling for hotel accommodations and alternative flights.

A Heathrow spokesperson in a statement says that teams were working to assist affected passengers.

“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals, and we have added flights to today’s schedule to accommodate an extra 10,000 passengers traveling through the airport,” the spokesperson said.

The incident raised concerns within the aviation industry about infrastructure resilience, with some experts questioning how such a critical facility could suffer a power failure without sufficient backup.

Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and former British Airways CEO, described the action as unpreparedness, planning failure by the airport.

The airport had been scheduled to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, carrying up to 291,000 passengers. The UK’s Department for Transport temporarily lifted restrictions on overnight flights to help manage congestion.

Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said he expected the airport to operate at full capacity by Saturday.