Over 1,350 flights have been canceled at London’s Heathrow Airport, according to the FlightRadar24 tracking service, as a result of a fire that broke out near the airport, which caused a widespread power outage. A fire that started in an electrical substation in North Hyde, in the western part of the capital, caused a blackout that led to the airport’s closure for the entire day. Nearly 300,000 passengers are set to remain grounded: it will take at least a week to return to normal. The flames have been partially extinguished, but thousands of homes are still without power.
The flagship carrier, British Airways, stated that the impact of the fire is “significant.”
“Heathrow is experiencing a major power outage,” said the airport operator, adding that “passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until it reopens.” The fire “will clearly have a significant impact on our operations and our customers, and we are working as quickly as possible to update them on travel options for the next 24 hours and beyond,” British Airways said in a statement.
Heathrow Airport, the busiest in Europe, handles over 80 million passengers annually and an average of 1,300 flights per day between landings and departures. At the time of the closure, 120 commercial aircraft were in flight heading to the main London airport, and 7 United Airlines flights had to return to their departure airports or land at other airports, a Heathrow spokesperson reported. As for the fire, which has not yet been fully extinguished, 70 firefighters with 10 fire engines are working on-site, while 150 residents have been evacuated from homes near the Hayes electrical substation in the London Borough of Hillingdon. Around 16,000 homes are without electricity.
Analysts are trying to assess the financial impact of the disaster on airlines, primarily British Airways, which is already seeing the event reflected in its stock price. The most immediate cost is the compensation to be paid to travelers, which Jefferies analysts estimate to be 1%-3% of the group’s revenue this year.
