Former transport secretary Ruth Kelly, who is an independent member of Heathrow’s board, will undertake a review of the airport’s crisis management plans and its response to a power outage caused by a substation fire, Heathrow chairman Lord Paul Deighton said.
Deighton said: “Closing the airport yesterday had significant impacts for our passengers, our customers, our colleagues and the country.
“Heathrow regrets the disruption this caused. We hope that all those affected understand that the decision was made in order to prioritise the safety of our passengers and colleagues.
“We are committed to finding any potential learnings from this unprecedented incident.
“To fully understand what happened, I have asked Ruth Kelly, former secretary of state for transport and an independent member of Heathrow’s Board, to undertake a review.
“The Kelly Review will analyse all of the relevant material concerning the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s response during the incident and how the airport recovered the operation with the objective of identifying any improvements that could be made to our future resilience.”
Updated
A summary of today's developments
Energy secretary Ed Miliband has ordered the National Energy System Operator to “urgently investigate” the power outage caused by a substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport on Friday. He is working with Ofgem and using powers under the Energy Act to formally launch the grid operator’s investigation.
The chief executive of Heathrow, Thomas Woldbye, defended the running of the airport after a fire at an electrical substation stopped about 1,300 planes and disrupted the journeys of hundreds of thousands of global passengers. It came after Willie Walsh, the International Air Transport Association’s director general, criticised Heathrow for the disruption. “This is yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travellers and airlines,” Walsh said
Heathrow airport said on Saturday morning that flights had resumed after yesterday’s power outage and that the airport was now “fully operational”. It added that hundreds of additional staff had been drafted in to help clear the backlog of flights. The airport also confirmed that it had added 50 slots to Saturday’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport.
The closure of Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, due to a fire at a nearby electrical substation dominated the front pages of British newspapers on Saturday. Friday’s closure is believed to be the worst disruption at Heathrow since December 2010.
The National Grid has apologised for the disruption caused by a power outage that caused Heathrow airport to close on Friday. In a statement published on X today, the National Grid said it was “deeply sorry” and would be working closely with the government, Heathrow and the police to “understand the cause of the incident”.
Several airlines announced they would restart scheduled flights both to and from Heathrow airport, including British Airways (BA), Air Canada, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Malaysia Airlines and Air India. BA said that it expected to operate about 85% of its scheduled flights on Saturday.
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said it was “good to see Heathrow airport return to full operations this morning”, in a post on social media. She added that the Department for Transport had lifted restrictions on night flights to ease the backlog and rail tickets could be used flexibly to help passengers.
Counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan police have been leading the investigation into the cause of the Hayes fire, which did not result in any casualties at the scene. “After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although inquiries do remain ongoing,” Cmdr Simon Messinger said.
David Omand, the former head of the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), said he was surprised at the length of Heathrow airport’s closure. Speaking to the BBC, Omand described it as a “national embarrassment”.
Yesterday, Downing Street said there were “questions to answer” after a fire at an electrical substation closed down the airport, stopping more than 1,350 flights and disrupting the journeys of hundreds of thousands of passengers.
