The travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers will be disrupted over the coming days due to the knock-on impact from the closure of Europe’s busiest airport – even as Heathrow said it is able to safely restart flights.
Heathrow airport, in west London, closed in the early hours of Friday morning after a large fire at a nearby substation caused a power outage. More than 1,300 flights have been diverted or cancelled on Friday, March 21, according to the data agency Cirium, affecting almost 300,000 passengers.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, Heathrow said it hoped “to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly”, adding that it would prioritise the “repatriation and relocation of aircraft”.
Sean Doyle, the chief
