Heathrow airport has shut down after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a mass power outage overnight.
At least 1,351 flights going to and from the airport will be impacted by the closure, with major disruption set to trigger chaos at airports around the world.
Inbound planes have been diverted to other airports, including Shannon in Ireland and Charles de Gaulle in Paris, with aviation experts saying the impact of disruption is “similar to 9/11”.
A Heathrow airport spokesman said the site will be closed all day and will not reopen until midnight tonight.
Some 100,000 homes in west London were without power overnight as 70 firefighters and 10 fire engines battled the blaze on Nestles Avenue in Hayes.
London Fire Brigade said the fire is now under control and London Ambulance Service confirmed that there were no casualties.
The cause of the blaze is yet to be determined but Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, said there was no suggestion of “foul play”.
Heathrow airport handled just under 84 million passengers last year and the disruption has come on the airport’s busiest day of the week.
Some 83,857,000 passengers were recorded at Heathrow’s terminals in 2024, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, which is nearly double the number of the next busiest airport in the UK.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, the chief executive of The Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “The situation at Heathrow airport is incredibly difficult, an incident like this at one of the world’s busiest airports will have a very significant knock-on impact on all travel for the next few days.
“Friday is typically the busiest day for travel with people returning from business trips, going on holiday or visiting friends and family, so all airports will likely be incredibly busy.
“Therefore, the reality is that the London airports would have been busy today already and this incident will exacerbate it further.”
Last year, the number of Heathrow passengers was equivalent to 229,000 people per day.
Telegraph
