Up to 300,000 passengers faced with dismissals while British Airport Heathrow closes due to fire
The Heathrow British Airport announced that it would be closed all Friday after a huge fire in a nearby electric substation wiped the electricity, interfering with flight arrangement around the world.
The London Fire Brigade said that about 70 firefighters struggled with a flame in the west of London, which caused a massive interruption of electricity in Heathrow, the most prominent European and in the world of the fifth airport.
Huge orange flames and black smoke showers could be seen shooting in the sky from a power plant about three kilometers from the airport. It took the firefighters about seven o’clock to blame under control, the London Fire Brigade said. By the early morning of the road, the largest British airport were mostly abandoned, except for some passengers who were leaving the luggage.
“Our fire investigators will start an investigation and we will continue to work closely with our partners to diminish
Disorder and support of the community, “said the fire brigade.
The fire, which was reported on Thursday just after 11pm, forced planes to divert to airports across Britain
And Europe, while many flights simply returned to their place of departure.
The cause of the fire is unclear
Heathrow said the airport, which is supposed to bear 1,351 flights throughout the day, flying up to 291,000 passengers,
Stay closed until midnight while experiencing a significant interruption of electricity.
Heathrow usually opens for flights a day at 6am because of nightly flying restrictions.
About 120 flights were in the air when the closing was announced, and some turned away and others diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris or Irish Shannon Airport, follow -up services.
French Airline Air France canceled eight flights to Heathrow from it, while the Dutch KLM airline said she had canceled three return flights.
British Airways had 341 flights that were supposed to land in Heathrow on Friday.
“This will obviously have a significant impact on our work and our customers, and we do as quickly as possible to update them about their travel capabilities in the next 24 hours and beyond,” it is said.
The cause of the fire has not yet been known.
Energy Minister Ed Miliband said that the “catastrophic” fire had prevented the work of backups and that engineers work to be scheduled for the third reserve mechanism.
“With any incident like this, we will want to understand why it happened and what if any lessons have for our infrastructure,” he told Sky News.
Flights have diverted around the world
Experts in the industry said that tourism, travel and trade will be further disturbed around the world, as flights will be canceled or delayed because the aircraft were out of placement.
“Heathrow is one of the world’s main centers,” said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the Falltradar24 flight website24. “This will disrupt Airlines Operations around the world.”
The fire forced planes to divert around the world.
Travel experts said the disorder would spread far beyond Heathrow.
“Heathrow is one of the world’s main centers,” said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for Flighthradar24. “This will disrupt Airlines Operations around the world.”
Carefully choreographic networks of airlines depend on aircraft and crews in certain places at a certain time. Dozens of air carriers will have to hurriedly configure their networks to move planes and crews.
“The second question is,” What will the airplain do to deal with the lag of passengers? “, Said the passenger industry analyst Henry Hartveldt with a research group of the atmosphere.” It will be chaotic for several days. “
Qantas Airways sent a flight from Perth to Paris, Flight United Airlines New York headed to Shannon, Ireland, and Flight United Airlines of San Francisco was supposed to land in Washington, not London.
Some passengers turned to social media. Adrian Spender, who works at the British seller Tesco, said in the post on X that he was at the Airbus A380, which headed to Heathrow.
“#Heathrow has no idea where we are going. Currently through Austria.”
Heathrow and other large airports in London in recent years have been affected by interruptions, recently automated defects of the gate and decomposition of the air traffic system, both in 2023.
Heathrow had its most prominent January at a record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, more than five percent compared to the same period last year. January was also the 11th month in a row, which average more than 200,000 passengers a day, and the airport cited a trans-atlantic journey as a key associate.
