Heathrow airport ‘had enough power' to stay open

LONDON

A British Airways plane takes off as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.

The head of the U.K.'s national grid has said there was "enough power" to keep Heathrow Airport running on Friday, after an electrical substation fire shuttered Europe's busiest air hub.

The shutdown, which lasted most of the day, affected thousands of passengers around the world and raised questions about the reliability of one of the U.K.'s key pieces of infrastructure.

National Grid chief executive John Pettigrew told the Financial Times that power had remained available to the airport in west London through two other substations.

"There was no lack of capacity from the substations," he said.

"Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow. Losing a substation is a unique event, but there were two others available."

Airport officials said the closure was due to the time it took to switch to the other substations and make safety checks.

"Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted," a Heathrow Airport spokesperson said.

"Given Heathrow's size and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge."

About 1,350 flights were affected by March 21's closure, according to the Flightradar24 tracking website. Around 120 Heathrow-bound planes were in the air when the closure was announced and had to be diverted.