Flights have begun landing at Heathrow as it aims to return to normal operation on Saturday after the airport was shut over a loss of power, with restrictions on overnight flights temporarily lifted.
Flights resumed at the west London airport on Friday evening following hours of closure after a blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes late on Thursday evening.
A statement on Saturday morning read: “We can confirm that Heathrow is open and fully operational today. Teams across the airport continue to do everything they can to support passengers impacted by yesterday’s outage at an off-airport power substation.
“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport.
“Passengers travelling today should check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flight.”
The Metropolitan Police are not treating the incident as suspicious and the London Fire Brigade’s investigation is focusing on the electrical distribution equipment.
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, British Airways (BA) flight BA56 from Johannesburg, South Africa was the first regular passenger flight to land at Heathrow since Thursday evening, touching down at 4.37am.
BA, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expects to operate around 85% of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday.
The airline would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals on Saturday but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
A spokesperson said: “We are planning to operate as many flights as possible to and from Heathrow on Saturday, but to recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex.
“We expect around 85% of our Saturday Heathrow schedule to run, but it is likely that all travelling customers will experience delays as we continue to navigate the challenges posed by Friday’s power outage at the airport.”
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said.
According to Heathrow’s website, there is no formal ban on night flights but since the 1960s, the Government has placed restrictions on them.
There is an annual limit of 5,800 night-time take-offs and landings between the hours of 11.30pm and 6am as well as a nightly limit, which caps the amount of noise the airport can make at night.
How the chaos unfolded
Heathrow Airport shut down completely early on Friday after a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation, which contained 25,000 litres of cooling oil, left it without power.
More than 200,000 passengers had their flights cancelled or diverted. Thousands of homes in the area lost power, and over 100 people were evacuated.
Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye called it an “unprecedented” day of disruption. “It’s not a small fire,” he said.
“We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city. Our backup systems have worked as they should, but they are not designed to run the entire airport.”
Power was later restored after the National Grid implemented an “interim solution,” allowing some flights to depart from Heathrow on Friday evening.
The London Fire Brigade has said the fire at the electricity substation that caused Heathrow Airport’s closure on Friday is “believed to be non-suspicious”.
Commander Simon Messinger, who is leading the Met Police response to the incident, said on Friday evening: “The investigation into the cause of the fire remains in its early stages. After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although inquiries do remain ongoing.
“Due to the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are leading our inquiries into this matter.”
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