A bit of breaking news: Heathrow Airport has closed down all traffic, with all flights diverted until 23:59 on 21 March.
Closed to traffic – Heathrow from the air.
In a notice, the airport said:
Due to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport, Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage.
To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23:59 on 21 March.
Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport and should contact their airline for further information. We apologise for the inconvenience.
In a statement, they add:
“Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.
“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow until 23h59 on 21 March 2025.
“We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.
“We will provide an update when more information on the resumption of operations is available.
“We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation.”
Updates are posted by the airport on Twitter.
Currently, 1351 flights look like they are being diverted or cancelled today, Some flights are diverting to Gatwick, although that spare capacity could be soaked fast.
Shannon is also being used as a diversion point.
Other diversions include Paris, Madrid, Birmingham, Amsterdam (to name a few), whilst a lot of transatlantic flights are turning around, heading back to their originating points.
A complete list of where aircraft are diverting to can be found at https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/lhr/arrivals with 120 fights in the air expected to be diverted at the time of writing
Sky News has pictures of the substation fire, which looks rather fierce at this time, whilst BBC News has continued breaking coverage, including power cuts in the Hayes area.
For now, if your travel plans have anything to do with going near Heathrow today, abandon them.
And you can bet the fallout of this is going to be… immense.
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