Heathrow resumes 'full service' as travellers warned of more delays after blaze left thousands stranded worldwide

22 March 2025, 06:47 | Updated: 22 March 2025, 08:39

The first flights of the day have taken off at Heathrow as the airport aims for a full day of service after Friday's catastrophic closure.

Heathrow was thrust into chaos on Friday as Europe's busiest airport was brought to a standstill by a substation inferno, with thousands stranded, hundreds of flights cancelled, and over 100 nearby residents evacuated.

Counter-terrorism police are currently leading the investigation into the incident - however the Met says there's currently no indication of foul play.

However, after a day of chaos, a Heathrow spokesperson confirmed this morning that the airport is now "open and fully operational" but warned passengers to check with their airlines.

London Heathrow to Zurich took off at 6:11am, just eleven minutes delayed, while London Heathrow to Madrid took off at 6:16am.

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The blaze began just after midnight an electricity substation in Hayes, close to Heathrow Airport, with the travel hub remaining closed for most of Friday.

The incident saw a transformer catch fire, with London Fire Brigade Deputy Commissioner Jonathan Smith confirming the fire involved "a transformer containing 25,000 litres of cooling oil".

He added: "This created a major hazard owing to the still live high voltage equipment and the nature of an oil fuelled fire."

Met Commander Simon Messenger said the incident is now "believed to be non-suspicious".

It comes as the first flight began to land at Heathrow following a total shutdown of the airport, with Europe's busiest travel hub prioritising customers diverted to European airports.

Heathrow continues to warn passengers not to travel to the airport unless advised by their airline.

Speaking late on Friday, Heathrow Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to passengers, calling the incident "as big as it gets for our airport".

Describing it as an “unprecedented incident”, the power outage saw a power loss equivalent to that used by “a mid-size city”.

The London Fire Brigade has echoed the Met's update, adding their investigation will "focus on the electrical distribution equipment".

The Civil Aviation Authority have said there will be "lessons learned" from today's incident.

Heathrow is the UK's largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.

More than 200,000 passengers were affected on Friday, with thousands of homes were left without power leading to around 150 people to be evacuated from surrounding properties in Hayes, west London.

The first flight touched down at the airport around 18 hours after all flights were grounded due to the blaze, sparked at a nearby electrical substation.

Bosses had feared it would be closed until midnight but say some flights will take off this evening.

'Major severity'

CEO of Heathrow Thomas Woldbye said he wanted to stress this has been an incident of "major severity".

"It's not a small fire.

"We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport."

Asked if there is a weak point in Heathrow's power system, he said: "You can say that but of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them.

"This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport and we are actually coming back quite fast I would say, when you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down then bring back up and make sure that they're safe."

Simon Calder breaks down the 'unprecedented scale' of Heathrow shutdown

He added: "This is unprecedented. It's never happened before and that's why I'm saying it has been a major incident."

Mr Woldbye went on to say the airport expects to return to "100% operation" on Saturday.

He said: "We expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day.

"(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There's no reason to come earlier."

The CEO said Heathrow will "look at anything we can learn from this" and encouraged the Prime Minister to ask him any questions he has.

'Lessons learned'

The Civil Aviation Authority says there will be "lessons learned" from today's closure of Heathrow Airport.

A spokesperson says the authority regulates the airport from a "safety perspective" and to protect consumers.

The aviation regulator says Heathrow must work with other parties at the airport to manage the incident and recover from it.

"There will of course be lessons learned from this event."

'No suggestions of foul play'

Heidi Alexander, the government's transport secretary, said there are "no suggestions at the moment of foul play" where the substation fire is concerned.

She told the media it is "imperative the cause is identified as soon as possible" and highlighted the positives, noting that "none of the backup systems failed because they were designed to protect airport's key systems - which they did".

She confirmed she has already spoken to Heathrow CEO Mr Woldbye about lessons to be learned for future incidents, as she praised the "swift" emergency response.

Sean Doyle, chief executive of British Airways, warned of the"huge impact" on passengers in the coming days.

Mr Doyle said the airline cancelled all short-haul flights and the majority of long-hail flights scheduled to operate on Friday.

In a statement, he said: "I wanted to a take a few moments to give you an update on how the closure of London Heathrow is impacting British Airways today and what that means for our operation over the coming days.

"As a result of a fire at a power station which started in the early hours of this morning, we've been forced to effectively ground our flying operation, cancelling every short-haul and the majority of long-haul flights that were scheduled to operate throughout today.

"This is an unprecedented situation, and we have not seen a closure of Heathrow of this scale for many years. Unfortunately, it will have a huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days.

"Our colleagues are working extremely hard to support our customers with the most up to date information in a live and evolving situation."

He added: "We have put all of our available resources onto the phone lines and extended opening times to help us to manage as many customers as quickly as possible.

"If you are travelling over the weekend we are also putting regular updates on ba.com and the Manage My Booking section of our website and app."