London Fire Brigade says it has brought under control a blaze that has closed Heathrow Airport reports news agency Associated Press. The fire was caused at London electrical substation in West London.
As the Heathrow Airport is shut down till March 21 after experiencing a significant power outage due to fire nearby, this incident has disrupted Britain’s largest travel hub, that is potentially costing the airline industry hundreds of millions of pounds reported CNN.
Due the fire around thousands of homes have lost power and at least 150 people had to be evacuated after the transformer within an electrical substation caught fire in west London.
According to an aviation expert the chaos caused by this fire could last days, if not weeks. As of early Friday, hundreds of flights to and from Heathrow have been canceled or diverted. Airline analytics firm Cirium estimated that around 1,45,000 passengers could be affected.
Shukor Yusof, the founder of Singapore-based Endau Analytics, an advisory firm that focuses on the aviation industry, told CNN the financial losses from the shutdown could be in the “hundreds of millions of pounds.”
The fallout “will cause chaos, undoubtedly, for the weekend and into next week because they have to resolve all those flights that couldn’t come in, all those problems that have piled up because of this shutdown,” he said.
Heathrow was the world’s fourth-busiest airport in 2023, according to the most recent data, with a record-breaking 83.9 million passengers passing through last year.
Yusof said closure of the airport will entities beyond airlines and travelers. It’s a “whole network of people involved” in running the operations of an airport and adjacent areas, ranging from retailers, cargo firms, jet fuel suppliers and surrounding communities that depend on the airport for their livelihood, he added.
Airlines rely on precisely coordinated networks to ensure planes and crews are in the right place at the right time. Now, dozens of carriers must rapidly restructure their operations to reposition aircraft and staff.
“At the moment, I think that the real focus is how to mitigate the impact of the airport closure on airlines and also on the people who work there,” Yusof explained, as it could take days, or even weeks, for airlines to clear the backlog of passengers.
British Airways said it is redirecting inbound flights already on their way to Heathrow to other UK airports, and it advised passengers on flights originally scheduled for Friday from Heathrow not to travel to the airport until further notice.
“This will clearly have a significant impact on our operation and our customers and we’re working as quickly as possible to update them on their travel options for the next 24 hours and beyond,” the airline said in a statement sent to CNN.
Heathrow, is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel, experienced its busiest January on record this year, with over 6.3 million passengers, a 5% increase compared to the same period last year. It also marked the 11th consecutive month of averaging more than 200,000 passengers per day, with transatlantic travel being a major factor.
(With inputs from agency)
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