London’s Heathrow fully operational now but disruption to continue for days; probe underway - 15 latest updates

London's Heathrow Airport is now open and fully operational after a daylong blackout disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers, the airport authorities informed on Saturday.

Europe’s busiest hub - Heathrow Airport - was shut down for about 18 hours after a fire at an electrical substation cut power for most of the day on Friday. The outage caused widespread cancellations and rerouting issues and over 200,000 passengers were stranded.

“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers traveling through the airport,” a Heathrow spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

British Airways, the biggest single operator at the airport, said it expects to run about 85% of its schedule on Saturday. Power supplies have been restored to all customers connected to National Grid UK’s North Hyde substation, including Heathrow, allowing operations to resume at the airport, the utility company said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, authorities said they found no evidence that it was suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation.

Check the latest updates:

• As per FlightRadar 24, the power outage affected at least 1,350 flights to and from the airport. However, the impact of it is expected to last several days, as passengers try to reschedule their trips and airlines work to reposition their planes and crews.
• After power was restored, a British Airways jet touched down just before sunset on Friday after Heathrow lifted its closure order. Further arrivals followed, including a short flight from Manchester in northwest England.
• A British Airways flight to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia departed from Heathrow just before 9 p.m. (2100GMT). British Airways says it will run eight long-haul flights on Friday night. The airport plans to operate full schedule on Saturday.
• “This incident will have a substantial impact on our airline and customers for many days to come, with disruption to journeys expected over the coming days,” said British Airways chief Sean Doyle.
• However, Heathrow advised passengers traveling on Saturday to check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flights.
• “We are deeply sorry for the disruption caused and are continuing to work closely with the Government, Heathrow and the police to understand the cause of the incident,” National Grid UK said. “We are now implementing measures to help further improve the resilience levels of our network.”

• About 120 flights were in the air when the closure was announced. Some turned around and others were diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris or Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.
• Metropolitan Police force noted that it is still too early to know what caused the blaze and said counterterrorism detectives are leading the investigation.
• “They have the ability to find the cause of the fire quickly and because of the location of the electrical substation fire and its impact on critical national infrastructure,” Metropolitan Police said
• It further added that “after initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious.”

• Heathrow said its backup power supply designed for emergencies worked as expected, but it wasn't enough to run the whole airport. It said it had no choice but to close the airport for most of the day.
• The airport's CEO, Thomas Woldbye, rejected suggestions that Heathrow didn't have adequate contingency plans, saying the incident was “unprecedented.
• Tom Wells, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
• The financial fallout from the day-long disruption may reach reach between $80 million and $100 million, factoring in costs related to accommodation, food and transportation, as well as broader operational impacts that include rerouting, schedule disruptions and aircraft repositioning, said Ronan Murphy, director at Alton Aviation Consultancy
  
  (With innputs from AP)