Heathrow Airport has closed to passengers flying to and from the airport today (Friday 21 March) following a nearby fire.
An electrical substation caught fire close to Europe’s busiest airport, with around 1,300 flights cancelled across the day. Despite the fire now under control, many homes and businesses are without power, including Heathrow airport, with smoke visible from the skies above the airport. The cause of the blaze is still unknown at this point.
Over 200,000 passengers were expected to travel through Heathrow today and may cause disruption across the weekend due to diversions and extra passengers.
Affected passengers are being urged to hold out for a refund and accept the next available travel made by their chosen airlines aqs ‘ airline shave a duty to look after their passengers’.
Speaking on the closure, Julia Lo Bue-Said, Chief Executive Officer of The Advantage Travel Partnership, said:
“The situation at Heathrow Airport is incredibly difficult, an incident like this at one of the world’s busiest airports will have a very significant knock-on impact on all travel for the next few days. Of course, the priority for everyone is safety, and the airport and the airlines will be working hard today to make sure the area is safe and that they can resume operations as soon as possible. Friday is typically the busiest day for travel with people returning from business trips, going on holiday or visiting friends and family, so all airports will likely be incredibly busy. Therefore, the reality is that the London airports would have been busy today already and this incident will exacerbate it further.
Under UK Law, when flights are delayed or cancelled, airlines have a duty to look after their passengers be that by providing meals, accommodation with an obligation of getting you to your destination as soon as possible, even if that’s on an alternative airline, however customers can also choose to have a full refund if this is preferred. Compensation however tends to be offered when the airline is at fault whereas today’s event is likely to qualify as “extraordinary circumstances” so compensation may not be offered. This is very much an evolving situation so we would advise travellers in the first instance to follow the advice being given by Heathrow and not travel to the airport today.
For anyone that has a flight booked out of Heathrow today, and had booked via a travel agent, I recommend contacting them in the first instance as they will be able to provide the latest information and advice. If you haven’t booked with a travel agent, then try and get in touch with the airlines and they will advise you on when you might be able to travel.”
It is believed Heathrow Airport does have a backup system for times such as this, however, it is unknown just how long this may take to get u paid running.
Passengers flying from any of Northern Ireland’s three airports have been urged not to travel to the airports if due to fly to Heathrow Airport until further notice. Passengers are also being encouraged to follow up via each airport’s social media accounts for future updates throughout the day.
If you have been affected by todays closure, please follow the advice of the airport you are flying from and speak with the airline you were due to fly to.
