Heathrow Airport closed all day Friday 21 March 2025

We have Dd1 and lovely SiL arriving this evening but from Gatwick thank goodness. Hopefully their flight won’t be affected, although I can imagine that many will try to find alternative routes.

Two of my nieces have gone on holiday together today, and their flight out was diverted from Heathrow to Gatwick, they were lucky.
I think they have filled all the available slots at other airports in the UK possible without affecting their own scheduled flights, and other flights have been diverted to arrive back in Europe rather than the UK. It must be a pain for arrivals who have had their flights home diverted, imagine landing at say, Cardiff or Glasgow instead of Heathrow in the middle of the night and having to find your own way home, or back to Heathrow to pick up your car.
Hopefully though this incident will prompt an urgent review of security and safety at sub stations.

The back up generator apparently used to be diesel, it was changed to electric a while ago in the interests of green efficiency, someone didn’t have their thinking caps on methinks, I suspect this will be a problem for quite a few days for 1000s of folks

Norah

Will some planes divert to Gatwick or other airports? We've been diverted to Schiphol, then smaller plane to Stanstead. Worked well.

A few might be but Heathrow is the busiest airport in Europe.

About 1,300 landings and take-off arrive/leave from Heathrow every day.

HelterSkelter1

And this is the Heathrow where another runway is planned. Hope they put a few more shillings in the electricity meter.

Yes!!

It seems madness to me that Heathrow doesn’t have its own power system or at least a generator in case of a failure. Many thousands of people delayed and inconvenienced, how many weddings, funerals and other occasions missed. I’m so glad not one of them. My flying days are definitely over!

The net zero madness has a lot to answer for in my opinion.

🤣

And this is the Heathrow where another runway is planned. Hope they put a few more shillings in the electricity meter.

Will some planes divert to Gatwick or other airports? We've been diverted to Schiphol, then smaller plane to Stanstead. Worked well.

Another theory:

One industry source has said that Net Zero is to blame because Heathrow is moving from diesel back-up generators to biomass - and the system failed when the substation went up in flames.

That said, I have a friend whose son lives in West London. 2 months ago they had a power surge that blew up the TV, coffee maker, fuse box and would have killed the laptops had they been plugged in.

The emergency electrician said "yeah it’s happening everywhere, the grid is maxxed out in west london. Fast charging EVs in Richmond, data centres on the M4, Heathrow - it cant cope"

🤷‍♀️

Jaxjacky

The backup generator has also been affected by fire Allira according to Sky News, not a very clever location then

Oh!

You'd think it would be guarded 24/7

Putin? Just because he can, as in Germany recently?
🤔

It's all deeply suspicious

The backup generator has also been affected by fire Allira according to Sky News, not a very clever location then

tanith

It seems counter-terrorism officers are on the scene a lot of people have no power over a wide area luckily mine is ok.

Obviously their first thought was the same as mine then, ie "Who dun it?" Especially considering how many one-off vehicles causing a bad incident crashing into people there have been recently - even if only some of them have been calling for "Alans Snackbar" at the time...

International Air Transport Association, the trade association for airlines, said it would be a “clear planning failure” if Heathrow turned out to be “dependent on a single power source without an alternative.”

I was surprised that Heathrow Airport does not have a backup power supply, or indeed, its own substation.

Thanks for starting the thread infoman and for the detailed post, madeleine45.

Not expecting family just yet so I hope all will e sorted before they arrive.
It just goes to show what chaos can be caused around the world if there is one emergency such as this fire at a substation.

It seems counter-terrorism officers are on the scene a lot of people have no power over a wide area luckily mine is ok.

My son who is on holiday far, far away isn’t in the least bit worried about his return ✈️ to Heathrow.
“That’s a problem for Sunday mum 😄 “

Oh to be so chilled.

My DD is on a flight now to Manchester Airport. I hope all is well when she arrives as I know planes are being diverted.

That must be a nightmare for airlines, especially on a Friday.

It's going to be chaos. I'm sorry for everyone concerned.

What caused the fire, do they know ? It looked very big.