A airplane taking off from Heathrow Airport in the UK.
Tim Eire | Xinhua | Getty Photos
London’s Heathrow Airport closed on Friday after a fireplace at a close-by electrical substation precipitated an influence outage, airport officers mentioned.
“Heathrow is experiencing a major energy outage throughout the airport as a result of a big hearth at a close-by electrical substation. While hearth crews are responding to the incident, we do not need readability on when energy could also be reliably restored,” a Heathrow spokesperson mentioned.
“We anticipate important disruption over the approaching days and passengers mustn’t journey to the airport beneath any circumstances till the airport reopens,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The airport will stay closed till not less than 11:59 p.m. native time on Friday.
“We all know this shall be disappointing for passengers and we wish to reassure that we’re working as laborious as doable to resolve the scenario,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The closure of Europe’s busiest airport disrupted greater than 100 flights that have been within the air and compelled to divert or return to their originating airports, in accordance with flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
United Airways mentioned seven of its flights had been diverted or returned to their originating airports as a result of closure, including that each one flights to London Heathrow on Friday had been canceled.
“We’re working with our prospects to supply different journey choices,” the provider mentioned in an announcement.
Some 145,000 passengers might be affected by the closure, in accordance with aviation-data agency Cirium.
Individuals stroll previous a departure board displaying Singapore Airways SQ318 flight to London Heathrow as cancelled at Singapore Changi Airport in Singapore on March 21, 2025.
Roslan Rahman | Afp | Getty Photos
Heathrow Airport has an estimated 1,300 take-offs and landings on the airport per day, in accordance with its web site. Heathrow dealt with a document 83.9 million passengers final yr — a virtually 6% enhance from 2023.
Airport officers mentioned they are going to replace vacationers “when extra data on the resumption of operations is on the market.”
Vacationers can examine Heathrow Airport’s web site or social media platforms, together with X.
