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Heathrow airport reopened on Saturday morning after a complete closure caused by an electrical failure, but Airlines warned of new disruptions when restarting operations.
The airport was fully reopened for flights on Saturday morning and the first planes took off just after 6 am.
Heathrow said it was “open and fully operational”, but the airlines had canceled almost 100 of the flights from Saturday at 8 am when they started the logistical challenge to restart their operations with planes, crews and passengers in their place and dispersed around the world.
Thomas Woldbye, CEO of Heathrow, said on Saturday that he was “proud” of the airport response to the electrical failure and had predicted any “major disturbance”.
However, some airline leaders were frustrated deprived by the airport messages which he had completely recovered, since they always cancel flights and treated with blocked passengers.
British Airways, by far the largest airline operator in Heathrow, said that he expected to cancel around 15% of his calendar to and since Heathrow on Saturday, which would be around 90 flights.
“To recover an operation of our size after such an important incident, is extremely complex … It is likely that all itinerant customers will undergo delays while we continue to navigate the challenges posed by the power failure at the airport,” said the airline.
Heathrow was closed in the early hours of Friday after a fire in a local electricity base in western London caused a power failure at the airport.
The airport and the national grid are both a meticulous examination on how the failure of one of the three substations could lead to the closure of Heathrow for almost 24 hours.
Willie Walsh, the former boss of Ba and a longtime critic of Heathrow, said that there had been a “clear planning failure” of the airport.
WoldBye said the airport’s rescue power supplies for its critical functions, including track fires and the control tower, had started, but that they were not designed to supply the entire airport.
“We would need a separate emergency power plant on the site … I don’t know an airport that has this,” he told the BBC.
“We will of course examine this and say we can learn from it, do we need a different level of resilience if we cannot trust that the grid around us works as it should.”
National Grid said on Saturday that he was taking measures to improve resilience on his network.
The company FTSE 100 has and operates the North Hyde sub-station in Hayes, western London, which caught fire Thursday evening, triggering questions about the vulnerability of the Critical Infrastructure of the United Kingdom.
The cause of the fire is still the subject of an investigation, but National Grid said that electricity had now been restored to all customers.
“The power supplies have been restored to all customers connected to our North Hyde sub-station, including Heathrow, allowing operations to take over at the airport. We are now implementing measures to help further improve the resilience levels of our network, “he said.
Friday, around 1,300 flights were canceled and the flights already in the air were turned to their original airport or diverted to other European centers.
This has left the airlines faced with a major challenge when they restart their schedules: many of their planes, pilots and cabin teams are in the wrong places, while many staff members will not be able to work due to strict rules on rest between flights.
“All of these long -haul aircraft – especially the BA – found themselves in airports, they were never supposed to be.
“The crew will also need a rest for a day or two before being able to restart, and each additional day is additional cancellations which run in the coming days. It is a domino effect.”
Heathrow said that it added 50 additional take -off and landing slots to its schedule, which would allow other passengers to travel on Saturday, if airlines can find planes and crew for them.
The command of the counter-terrorism of the Metropolitan Police of London continued to conduct investigations on the fire of the sub-station, but Friday evening, the Met said that they did not deal with the incident as a suspect.
