Heathrow warned by airlines about power supply days before shutdown.
Heathrow Warned About Power Supply Issues Days Before Shutdown.
By Tom Espiner and Simon Browning, BBC Business Reporters.
Heathrow Airport was alerted to concerns about the resilience of its power supply just days before a fire forced the airport to shut down for over a day last month.
Nigel Wicking, head of the Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee, told MPs on Wednesday that he had raised these concerns with Heathrow officials on March 15 and again on March 19. He specifically highlighted incidents of wire and cable theft affecting parts of the power supply, which temporarily disabled runway lights—critical for passenger safety.
Despite these warnings, Heathrow's CEO, Thomas Woldbye, described the fire as an "unlikely event" with "high consequences" that was "difficult to deal with."
Disruption and Apologies.
The fire at an electrical substation on March 21 led to widespread disruptions, affecting nearly 300,000 passengers. Mr. Woldbye apologized, calling the situation "unprecedented" and expressing his "deepest regrets."
Airlines had to divert 120 aircraft that day, causing significant operational challenges. According to Mr. Wicking, by 5:30 AM, UK airspace had run out of diversion capacity, forcing some planes to reroute to Europe, while others returned to their bases as far as India.
Power Failure and Safety Concerns.
Mr. Woldbye explained that in the early hours of March 21, Heathrow began losing power, triggering alerts in its operations center. However, the exact cause remained unknown until later, when the fire department reported a substation fire.
While Heathrow is powered by three substations, the failure of one led to a significant shutdown, particularly affecting Terminal 2 and key central systems. Ensuring passenger safety was the airport’s priority, Mr. Woldbye said, adding that all safety-critical systems, including runway lighting and air traffic control, activated as expected.
Defending the decision to delay reopening, he argued that rushing could have resulted in injuries. "Had we got this wrong, we might be having a very different discussion about why people got hurt," he said.
However, Mr. Wicking contended that Terminal 5 could have resumed operations much earlier. "From what I understood from British Airways and others, Terminal 5 was ready to operate by mid-morning, around 10 o’clock," he said.
Future Expansion and Power Demand.
The UK government has backed Heathrow’s plan to build a third runway to boost economic growth. However, Mr. Woldbye noted that the expansion would require double the airport’s current power supply.
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