Heathrow’s backup power 'was never designed to support whole airport,' says Transport Secretary
24 March 2025, 16:03 | Updated: 24 March 2025, 16:45
Heathrow Airport's backup power systems were 'never designed' to support the running of the entire airport, the Transport Secretary told MPs today.
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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.
Delivering a statement in the Commons this afternoon, Heidi Alexander said that the airport requires "as much power as a small city" to be able to operate, and the fire at a nearby power supply point mean airport chiefs had to "restart" the entire system and carry out extensive testing before flights could operate again.
She told MPs that while the airport has three supply points and only one of them failed, airport bosses took the view that the supply from the two remaining points was not enough to safely keep the airport running.
The airport's backup systems "ensured safety protocols were maintained but were never designed to support full operation of the whole airport," she said.
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She said that 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 200,000 passengers were affected by the effects of the fire on Friday.
"What we know is that there was an unprecedented outage and that it wasn't the result of a single point of failure on the electricity transmission or distribution system," Ms Alexander said.
"The feed from North Hyde substation is one of three supply points to Heathrow and the fire caused exceptional damage that took the whole substation out of service. The other supply points continued supplying to Heathrow Airport throughout the incident.
"Heathrow's view was that this supply was insufficient to ensure the safe and secure ongoing operation of all systems across the whole airport. It proceeded to reconfigure its internal electricity network to enable the resumption of full operations utilising the two other external supply points.
"This required hundreds of systems to be safely powered down and then safely powered up with extensive testing."
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She told MPs that police do not believe the fire to be suspicious however counter-terrorism officers are leading inquiries due to "specialist resources within that command".
"There will of course be learnings to ensure we avoid such incidents from reoccurring," she said. "That is why on Saturday the Energy Secretary (Ed Miliband) working with Ofgem, commissioned the independent National Energy System Operator (Neso) to urgently investigate this incident.
"The review will also seek to understand any wider lessons to be learned for energy resilience, for critical national infrastructure. Neso has been asked to report back to Desnz (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) with initial findings within six weeks.
"In addition, Heathrow has asked Ruth Kelly, former secretary of state for Transport, and an independent member of Heathrow's board, to undertake a review of its internal resilience. The Kelly review will analyse the robustness and execution of Heathrow's crisis management plans, the airport's response and how it recovered the operation."
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The Government is now "closely monitoring to ensure that passengers are properly supported", including with their consumer rights.
Ms Alexander explained: "The Government is acutely aware of the need to ensure that passengers are well looked after and their consumer rights are protected.
"This is why UK law ensures that airlines must provide passengers with a refund within seven days or to be rerouted to their destination under the same conditions.
"We are closely monitoring to ensure that passengers are properly supported."
LBC has been told that the boss of Heathrow Airport will be quizzed by MPs next week following the disruption.
Thomas Woldbye, who is chief executive of the UK’s busiest airport, has been criticised for his handling of Friday’s power outage.
