A aircraft taking off from Heathrow Airport in the UK.
Tim Eire | Xinhua | Getty Photos
London’s Heathrow Airport closed on Friday after a hearth at a close-by electrical substation induced an influence outage, airport officers stated.
“Heathrow is experiencing a big energy outage throughout the airport as a result of a big hearth at a close-by electrical substation. While hearth crews are responding to the incident, we don’t have readability on when energy could also be reliably restored,” a Heathrow spokesperson stated.
“We count on vital disruption over the approaching days and passengers mustn’t journey to the airport underneath any circumstances till the airport reopens,” the spokesperson stated.
The airport will stay closed till at the very least 11:59 p.m. native time on Friday.
“We all know this shall be disappointing for passengers and we wish to reassure that we’re working as onerous as doable to resolve the state of affairs,” the spokesperson stated.
The closure of Europe’s busiest airport disrupted greater than 100 flights that had been within the air and compelled to divert or return to their originating airports, in accordance with flight-tracking web site Flightradar24.
United Airways stated seven of its flights had been diverted or returned to their originating airports as a result of closure, including that each one flights to London Heathrow on Friday had been canceled.
“We’re working with our clients to supply various journey choices,” the provider stated in an announcement.
Emirates, Air India and Aer Lingus canceled all flights to and from Heathrow on Friday, in accordance with Reuters. Different flights are being diverted to London Gatwick Airport, in accordance with NBC Information.
Some 145,000 passengers could possibly be affected by the closure, in accordance with aviation-data agency Cirium.
Individuals stroll previous a departure board displaying Singapore Airways SQ318 flight to London Heathrow as cancelled at Singapore Changi Airport in Singapore on March 21, 2025.
Roslan Rahman | Afp | Getty Photos
Heathrow Airport has an estimated 1,300 take-offs and landings on the airport per day, in accordance with its web site. Heathrow dealt with a document 83.9 million passengers final yr — an almost 6% improve from 2023.
Airport officers stated they may replace vacationers “when extra data on the resumption of operations is obtainable.”
Vacationers can verify Heathrow Airport’s website or social media platforms, together with X.
