Travel, Tourism & Hospitality
Heathrow resumes ops after shutdown causes travel chaos
London's Heathrow Airport has resumed full operations a day after a major fire shut down Europe's busiest airport, causing global travel chaos. Some flights were cancelled or delayed as the travel industry scrambled to fix battered airline schedules.
London's Heathrow Airport resumed full operations today (March 22) a day after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe's busiest airport, causing global travel chaos.
Some flights were cancelled or delayed as the travel industry scrambled to reroute passengers and fix battered airline schedules after the huge fire at an electrical substation serving the airport, reported Reuters.
Operations were normal on Saturday morning, but airlines were still dealing with the aftermath, said the airport's chief executive, Thomas Woldbye.
He said the Heathrow teams worked tirelessly to reopen the world's fifth-busiest airport after it was forced to close entirely after a huge fire engulfed a nearby substation on Thursday night, with travellers told to stay away.
The airport had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in Britain and across Europe, while many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure.
"We don't expect any major amount of flights to be cancelled or delayed. There are some cancellations and there are some delays. We are handling them in the same way as we would normally do," Woldbye told BBC radio.
Several flights have taken off from London’s Heathrow Airport, after a day of disruption grounded hundreds of planes, reported CNN citing tracking website FlightRadar24.
Among the flights that have left the airport are British Airways flights to Cape Town and Riyadh.
Heathrow said there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mostly focused on relocating aircraft and bringing planes into London.
Several flights have taken off from London’s Heathrow Airport, after a day of disruption grounded hundreds of planes, said media reports citing tracking website FlightRadar24.
Among the flights that have left the airport are British Airways flights to Cape Town and Riyadh.
Earlier, British Airways said that it had been given clearance by the airport to depart eight long-haul flights from 7 p.m. local time.
Meanwhile, Air Canada said it is to resume all scheduled flights to the airport “this evening as (the) airport reopens.”
United Airlines said that it had 17 scheduled Friday departures to London Heathrow. “At this time, we expect to operate most scheduled Friday departures to London,” a spokesperson for the American carrier told CNN.
Meanwhile BBC reported quite a significant disruption at Heathrow Airport today.
British Airways has cancelled 80 flights in total to and from the airport. Turkish Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Singapore Airlines, WestJet, Air India and Air Canada are also among those to have cancelled flights.
It’s going to be a very difficult day today, not only for cancellation but also for delays, it stated.
British Airways is warning passengers for those flights that will go ahead to expect delays.
The advice for passengers is to check with their individual airline ahead of travelling to Heathrow Airport, because it’s a fast-moving and fluid situation.
In addition to this, many planes and crews are in the wrong positions.
There were a number of repositioning flights taking place yesterday evening from places like Gatwick Airport, Glasgow, and Manchester.
But some planes are further afield at places like Shannon Airport, Barcelona, Paris, and in North America.
There is going to be knock-on effect, not only for today but going into tomorrow - and probably into Monday and early next week as well.