(Bloomberg) — London’s Heathrow airport said it’s open and fully operational following an unprecedented daylong blackout that brought travel to a standstill for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest airport. British Airways, the biggest single operator at the airport, said it expects to run about 85% of its schedule on Saturday. Power supplies have been restored to all customers connected to National Grid UK’s North Hyde substation, including Heathrow, allowing operations to resume at the airport, the utility company said in a post on X. “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 traveling through the airport,” a Heathrow spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Saturday. Heathrow advised passengers traveling on Saturday to check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flights. The reopening followed a day of mass chaos for travelers as hundreds of flights were diverted or canceled. The UK Metropolitan Police said earlier that its counter-terrorism command is leading a probe into the fire at a nearby power substation that led to the outage, though there’s no indication at this point of foul play. “We are deeply sorry for the disruption caused and are continuing to work closely with the Government, Heathrow and the police to understand the cause of the incident,” National Grid UK said. “We are now implementing measures to help further improve the resilience levels of our network.” The closure forced more than 1,300 flights to be canceled or rerouted on Friday alone. Heathrow, home to British Airways, is a major hub for transatlantic travel, as well as connections to the Middle East and Asia. While nearby airports such as London Gatwick have accepted some diverted flights, others are being sent as far as Frankfurt. “This incident will have a substantial impact on our airline and customers for many days to come, with disruption to journeys expected over the coming days,” said British Airways chief Sean Doyle. The airline said in a statement late Friday that its full Saturday schedule includes nearly 600 departures and arrivals and it hoped to operate as many of those flights as possible. The financial fallout from the day-long disruption may reach reach between $80 million and $100 million, factoring in costs related to accommodation, food and transportation, as well as broader operational impacts that include rerouting, schedule disruptions and aircraft repositioning, said Ronan Murphy, director at Alton Aviation Consultancy An outage of this scale is unprecedented for the airfield. About 677 flights will be affected at British Airways alone, according to ch-Aviation, which compiles industry data. That’s followed by 62 flights for Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. and 42 flights for Deutsche Lufthansa AG. IAG SA, the parent of British Airways, fell as
Heathrow Airport has announced that it is now fully operational following a shutdown caused by a blackout.
