Britain’s Heathrow Airport was closed all day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest travel hub.
Britain’s Heathrow Airport was closed for the day after a fire knocked out its power overnight, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest travel hub.
At least 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow were affected already, including several from U.S. cities that were canceled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.
The Heathrow closure is drawing comparisons to the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption that closed much of European airspace for five days out of fears volcanic ash could damage jet engines.
The eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-lah-yer-kuhl), after two centuries of silence, spewed an ash cloud that closed Europe’s airspace and grounded millions of travelers. Iceland was briefly infamous as the country that stopped the world.
Read more about Iceland’s tourism boom in the aftermath of the 2010 eruption.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he is receiving regular updates on the fire that has shut down Heathrow Airport, as he thanked the emergency services tacking the blaze.
Starmer posted on X: “I know the situation in Heathrow is causing distress and disruption, especially for those travelling or without power in their homes. I’m receiving regular updates and I’m in close contact with partners on the ground. Thanks to our emergency workers for keeping people safe.”
Scandinavian Airlines has canceled all 12 of its flights to and from London Heathrow on Friday.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and remain in continuous dialogue with Heathrow. Naturally, we hope for a swift resolution,” the company said in a statement.
Known as SAS, it’s considered the national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Travellers walk through the dark car park at Terminal 4 as Britain’s Heathrow Airport has closed for the full day Friday after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at one of Europe’s biggest travel hubs in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
At Heathrow’s Terminal 5, a family of five traveling to Dallas had shown up in the hopes their flight home — still listed as delayed — would take off.
But when Andrea Sri brought her brother, sister-in-law and their three children to the airport, they were told by police that there would be no flight.
“It was a waste of time. Very confusing,” said Sri, who lives in London. “We tried to get in touch with British Airways, but they don’t open their telephone line until 8 a.m.”
Heathrow is one of the world’s biggest airports, but there are five others in the wider London area as well.
Travelers might be able to rebook through the remaining five airports — City, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and Southend — in the aftermath of Heathrow’s closure.
However, they aren’t all easy to reach from Heathrow. While City is in inner London, and buses link Heathrow with Gatwick, the others are further out. Southend is about a 78-mile drive from Heathrow, around the congested M25 orbital highway and then out to the eastern coast of England.
LONDON — Residents in west London have described hearing a large explosion, followed by a fireball and clouds of smoke, when a blaze broke ripped through an electrical substation near Heathrow Airport.
Matthew Muirhead, who was working a night shift, said that at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday he saw smoke rising over trees, then “a bright flash of white and all the lights in town went out.”
Delivery driver Adeel Anwar said the heat and billowing smoke from the blaze were “absolutely apocalyptic.” He told Sky News that as he drove past the substation “I just felt the heat … I tried to just get out of the area as quick as possible.”
Firefighters brought the blaze under control after seven hours and were still working to douse the flames on Friday. No injuries were reported.
Electricity supplier National Grid said power was restored to 62,000 customers by Friday morning, leaving 4,900 still without electricity.
A passenger stands in front of a flight information screen showing cancelled flights destined for the Heathrow Airport in London, at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi, India, Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Shonal Ganguly)
NEW DELHI — All Air India flights to Heathrow were suspended until Friday midnight, the carrier said in a statement, adding that it will “update about resumption of operations as soon as we have more information.”
The airline also said one of its flights had to return mid-air to Mumbai and another was diverted to Frankfurt. The company didn’t specify how many flights were affected in total.
Some passengers at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport said they had been informed of cancellations, while others said they were still waiting for the airline to provide them with alternate flights.
“As soon I went inside to get my boarding pass, they (airline staff) told us that the flight has been canceled and there is no flight for next two, three days,” passenger Vikas Swarup said.
Emma Fulton, who was in India’s Jaipur city for a wedding, said she received a text message en route to the airport.
“We had a text message about 20 mins before we arrived here, but we were already on the road,” she said.
At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected already, including several from U.S. cities that were canceled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.
Aerial footage showed the aftermath of the fire at a electricity substation for Heathrow.
The video also showed dozens of grounded planes at the airport.
DUBAI — Eight outbound flights from Dubai International Airport to Heathrow, and one inbound from London to Dubai, were canceled Friday, according to Dubai Airports.
Travelers were told to contact their airlines for rebooking options.
Spanish airport operator Aena said on Friday morning that 20 flights to and from Madrid and Barcelona had been canceled due to the Heathrow power outage. A total of 54 flights headed to or departing from its terminals were affected.
In a post on X, the state-controlled commercial airport operator advised travelers to contact airlines for more information about disrupted flights.
ROME — The fire that shut Heathrow airport has caused limited disruption at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci international airport in Fiumicino.
A spokesperson said that so far 10 flights, to and from Heathrow, have been canceled, but passengers have been kept informed and there were no lines at the airport.
The fire at a power station about 2 miles from Heathrow Airport was brought under control about seven hours after it erupted in a ball of flames, the London Fire Brigade said.
DUBLIN — Ryanair has added eight “rescue flights” between Dublin and Stansted, another London airport, on Friday and Saturday to help travelers impacted by the fire at Heathrow, the budget airline announced.
Ryanair does not operate at Heathrow.
Four of the flights will occur Friday afternoon, and the remaining on Saturday morning.
BERLIN — All flights by Lufthansa Group to and from Heathrow were canceled on Friday.
The company didn’t specify how many flights were affected in total, but said in an emailed statement that “passengers affected by the flight cancellations have been rebooked on other flights and informed about it.”
Lufthansa Group includes Germany’s biggest airline, Lufthansa, as well as Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and others.
Britain’s Heathrow Airport will be closed Friday after a fire at an electrical substation knocked out power to the airport and thousands of homes. About 150 people had to be evacuated after a transformer within an electrical substation caught fire in west London.
LONDON — British officials working to determine the cause of an electrical substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport have not yet found evidence it’s suspicious.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband says “it’s too early to say” what caused the huge blaze, but there’s “no suggestion” of foul play.
London’s Metropolitan Police say the fire brigade is leading the investigation, suggesting it’s not thought to be criminal.
TOKYO — The closure of Heathrow forced two Japanese flights that had already departed to return to Tokyo and a third to change its destination, airline officials said.
Japan Airlines said one of its two Heathrow-bound flights Friday returned to Tokyo’s Haneda international airport, and another one diverted to the Finnish capital, Helsinki. A third flight out of Tokyo, operated by All Nippon Airways, another major Japanese carrier, also returned to Haneda.
Airline officials advised passengers to check the latest flight information for Saturday.
The noise from Europe’s busiest airport is a constant bugbear for those who live nearby, but has temporarily fallen silent.
“Basically living near Heathrow is noisy. There are planes every 90 seconds or so, plus the constant hum of traffic, but you get used to it, to the point of no longer noticing,” said James Henderson, who has lived next to Heathrow for over 20 years.
“Today is different. You can hear the birds singing.”
Australian airline Qantas diverted its Singapore-London and Perth-London flights to Paris on Friday and then bused the travelers to London, a spokesperson said.
Customers will be contacted directly if their flight is impacted.
LONDON — Aviation consultant John Strickland says it will take several days for global airline travel to recover from a daylong closure of Heathrow Airport.
He said: “We’re talking about several days’ worth of disruption to get the planes recovered and start using them again to move planned and disrupted passengers.”
Strickland compared the disruption to “a contained version of 9/11 or, to an extent, the Icelandic volcanic eruption” that shut European airspace in 2010.
“I remembered seeing on those occasions – particularly more so on 9/11 – it happened so quick and then U.S. airspace was closed, they were turning back aircraft and holding planes. That’s the parallel I would make.
“Heathrow being such a busy airport and full, there’s no kind of wriggle room for getting out of these kind of things.”
A plane takes off over a road sign near Heathrow Airport in London, June 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
The closure of Heathrow rippled through global aviation. The long-haul carrier Emirates in Dubai, which has London as one of its top destinations, cancelled six round-trip flights to Heathrow on Friday alone.
Etihad in neighboring Abu Dhabi cancelled two round-trip flights, while one flight diverted to Frankfurt, Germany. Qatar Airways said at least seven scheduled flights were “impacted,” with its staff working with passengers.
Thailand’s national airline Thai Airways posted on its official Facebook page that four of its flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday have been affected and advised passengers to check the schedules later in the day.
At least one of its London-bound flights appeared to have diverted to Brussels, according to flight tracking service FlightRadar 24.
A British government minister says a “catastrophic” fire knocked out a backup generator as well as the electrical substation that supplies power to Heathrow Airport.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC that the blaze is “unprecedented.”
He said it’s too early to know the cause but that lessons will have to be learned about “protection and the resilience that is in place for major institutions like Heathrow.”
Seven United Airlines flights returned to their origin or diverted to other airports and its flights Friday to Heathrow were canceled, the airline said.
The FlightAware website showed more cancelations including two from John F. Kennedy International in New York, a Delta Airlines flight and an American Airlines flight.
Other jets were diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.
National Rail canceled all trains to and from the airport.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% for the same period last year. January also was the 11th month in a row it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing transatlantic travel as a key contributor.
Heathrow normally opens for flights at 6 a.m. due to nighttime flying restrictions. It said the closure would last until 11:59 p.m. Friday.
The U.K. government earlier this year approved building a third runway at the airport to boost the economy and connectivity to the world.
