Air passengers face the days of disorders while Heathrow struggles to recover from the fire that has extinguished the most prominent airport in Europe, leading to 1,300 flight cancellation and asking questions about the resistance of British infrastructure.
The flames in the local substitutes of electricity caused an interruption of the electricity that closed the airport in the early hours of the morning and forced entry flights to divert to other hubs, such as Paris and Amsterdam, or return to their original airport.
Some transatlantic flights ended wherever the space was available, including the flight Air Canada from Toronto diverted to Goose Bay, Newfoundland.
In his height, 70 firefighters were dealing with hell, who began shortly before midnight on Thursday and lit 25,000 liters of cooling oil.
After the engineers worked to return the power supply throughout the day, Heathrow said that they would lead a handful of flights on Friday night on Friday night, before they opened again on Saturday.
The flight service of the flights continued only after 7pm, when the first plane Ba landed back to Heathrow.
However, the disorder is expected to last for days as carriers have started the logistical challenge of re -launching their operations by planes, crews and passengers outside the place and scattered all over the world.
“This is an unprecedented situation and for many years we haven’t seen the closure of Heathrow from this scale,” said Sean Doyle, the British Airways CEO.
London metropolitan police have announced that his command against terrorism is leading inquiries, given the “Location of the substation and the influence that this incident had on the critical national infrastructure.”
However, investigators who examine the cause of the fire do not believe that criminal or hostile state activity played a role, according to people who are familiar with this issue.
The closure after the failure of a local tenant also asked questions about Heathrow’s resistance and whether other parts of the British national infrastructure were similarly vulnerable.
Willie Walsh, former boss Ba -ai current head of the International Air Transport Association, criticized what he said was “a clear failure in planning” that left a critical infrastructure dependent on one energy source.
MP Ruth Cadbury, Chairman of the Traffic Selection Committee, told the BBC that the incident “asked questions about infrastructure resistance.”
Heathrow managers rejected these claims. They said that the airport had pulled energy from three substations, as well as spare generators, which offer enough emergency to be open, although insufficient to conduct full airport operations over a long period.
Thomas Woldbye, the Heathrow CEO, said the airport had suffered a “great seriousness incident”. He added, “This is unprecedented. It never happened before … We don’t close the airport if we don’t have serious security concerns.”
Although only one of the three substances that supply power, Heathrow was forced to close thousands of electrical systems. “Reboot all these systems safely … lasts a long time,” Woldbye said. “We cannot be kept 100 percent [against every contingency]”He said.
British Airways, which performs more than half of the Heathrow flights, was up to by far the worst air companies and told passengers to prepare for long -term disorders.
“This incident will have a significant impact on our Avio -Company and customers for many more days, with travel disorders that are expected in the coming days,” Doyle said.
The airline planned to execute more than 670 flights that carried about 107,000 customers on Friday, and similar numbers planned over the weekend. More than 200,000 passengers use Heathrow daily.
Fully closure sent passengers to find to find other ways of traveling. Some aviation companies, including Ryanair and Easyjet, as well as Eurostar’s International Train Service, have placed additional places in their services, while railway operators in the UK have reported spikes in train reservations.
Some turned to private jets. Toby Edwards, Private Jet Charter Company Victor companies, said the demand for flights “increased”, including one passenger who paid $ 75,000 to fly over Atlantic.
As the demand for the increase in the hotel near Heathrow has been charged with increasing prices more than four times to as much as £ 700 per night.
Shares on European airlines closed on Friday after Heathrow’s closure, including International Airlines Group, a British Airway’s parents, which fell almost 3 percent.
Additional reporting Lucy Fisher, Kieran Smith, Akila Quinio and Jamie John
