Heathrow airport in London returned to life on Saturday, one day after A fire to an electrical substation Close the travel center for about 16 hours, disturbing flights worldwide and raising questions about the reliability of the British electricity network.
Police was still investigating how the fire in western London was started. The fire caused a reduction in power to tens of thousands of neighboring houses as well as Heathrow, one of the most frequented airports in the world. London metropolitan police said there were no indication of a unfair game, and intelligence officials in Europe and the United States said they had no reason to think that a group or a terrorist country had been involved.
But the episode sparked an immediate effusion of the frustration of affected travelers and British politicians, who accused the authorities of not being sufficiently prepared to deal with a failure of power on Friday.
Toby Harris, a labor legislator who is chairman of the National Preparation Commission, described the closure of the airport “huge failure”. He said to the BBC That “it looks like me at Heathrow airport was simply not as prepared as it should have been.”
Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow CEO, defended the answer on Saturday, praising emergency workers and engineering officials who allowed the sprawling airport to resume operations on Friday evening.
“I am proud of what people have done to get us out of the situation,” Woldbye told BBC on Saturday morning. “Do not forget, the situation was not created at Heathrow airport. It was created outside the airport, and we had to face the consequences.”
Woldbye refused to comment when he was asked if he should resign on the incident, who Thousands of blocked travelers in other European airports, many of which were still fighting to read thefts During the weekend. He undertook to “look at what we can do better” but rejected the criticism that the airport should have had safeguard systems that would have kept power after the fire.
“I’m sure there will be questions, but I don’t know an airport that has a backup diet that can light up in a few minutes to the scale of what we experienced yesterday,” he said, adding that “the same would happen in other airports.”
A Heathrow representative said on Saturday that the airport had hundreds of additional employees in service and added flights to the day’s calendar to accommodate 10,000 additional passengers. On average, 229,000 people a day traveled the airport last year.
More than a thousand flights have been diverted, ravages on the plans of more than a quarter of a million travelers, estimated the Cirium, an aviation data company. According to Flightradar24, planes around the world were heading for Heathrow, including Brazil, Hong Kong and South Africa, according to Flightradar24, a follow -up website.
British Airways, Heathrow’s largest carrier, said on Friday evening that he expected around 85% of his nearly 600 departures and arrivals scheduled for Saturday, but that delays were likely to affect all passengers. The airline said it also canceled flights to high frequency routes where passengers had more charging options.
At Heathrow Terminal 3 – where Friday’s power failure had left the ticket meters and empty doors – travelers arrived early on Saturday morning once trains and other transport The roads to the airport had reopened.
Usu and Sylvia Popa, who live in Crewe, in the northwest of England, spent the night in a neighboring hotel after the cancellation of their flight in Los Angeles. Mr. Popa said he woke up several times to check the airline’s messages, Virgin Atlantic, but received nothing. At 7 a.m., the flights were completely reserved and the first departure they could get was for Sunday morning.
“At least they could have said at the airport at midnight,” said Ms. Popa. “I know they don’t want to create chaos but they should have some consideration.”
The couple had spent a year planning a road trip around the American West Coast. As they treated delays, they found some lightness in their repeated bad luck: during a previous trip in 2010, their Romanian flight to England was anchored by a cloud of ash on Europe caused by A volcanic eruption in Iceland.
Friday, the delays in Heathrow was caused by what the London Fire-Brigade said was a large fire in the substation powered by thousands of gallons of cooling oil. The National GRID, a public service company, said that the substation network had been reconfigured to partially restore energy at the airport and other customers.
Fire and Heathrow stop wider questions raised on British infrastructure. Ed Miliband, British energy secretary, promised on Friday that officials would examine what had been wrong.
“Obviously, with any incident like this, you will want to understand why it happened and what lessons, if necessary, that he has for our infrastructure,” he told Sky News.
The largest disturbance was felt by British Airways, which operates about half of the flights in and outside Heathrow every day. Sean Doyle, managing director of the airline, warned on Friday that the airport closure would have a “huge impact” for days.
The airline has added staff and extended the opening hours of its customer service telephone lines to help travelers blocked. He encouraged passengers to consult updates online and said that he would automatically list people with canceled flights.
But for some, it was not enough. Edmund Owusu, whose flight to Accra, Ghana was canceled on Friday, said that he had spent three hours called British Airways, only to receive a recorded message. He was finally able to read his flight online, but not before Wednesday, cutting his holidays.
“I understand why they did this,” he said on Saturday about his inability to reach anyone at the airline. “They were trying to avoid the pressure they would get people.”
The airline must bring thousands of customers to their destinations, but must also find crews to succeed staff members who cannot continue to work due to restrictions on the number of hours they can work without leave.
On Friday, the actions of IAG, the parent company of British Airways, dropped by almost 2% while investors considered the financial benefits of the closure of Heathrow, including the additional accommodation costs to staff and customers, and how much it could have to pay compensation.
John Yoon Contributed reports.
