Atmospheric travelers face more turmoil, with Heathrow reopened after fire

Atmospheric travelers face days of turmoil while Heathrow is struggling to recover from a fire that closed the most crowded European airports, which leads to 1,300 flying and asking questions about the flexibility of infrastructure in the United Kingdom.

The fire caused a local power station in the power outage that closed the airport in the early hours of Friday morning and forced the flights contained to convert other centers, such as Paris and Amsterdam, or return to their original airports.

Some of the flights expired wherever the area is available, including the Canada flight from Toronto, which was transferred to Oza Bay, Newfoundland.

At its peak, 70 firefighters were treating hell that started shortly before midnight on Thursday and lit 25,000 liters of cooling oil.

After the engineers worked to restore energy supplies throughout the day, Heathrow said he would run a handful of flights on Friday evening before reopening it on Saturday.

A flight structure of flights was resumed immediately after 7 pm, when the first plane landed in Heathrow.

However, the turmoil is expected to continue for several days as the logistical challenge companies have started to restart their operations with aircraft, crews and passengers outside their place and spread all over the world.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Sean Doyle, CEO of British Airways.

The Capital Police in London said that the anti -terrorism command was leading investigations, given “the location of the sub -station and the impact that this incident caused on the critical national infrastructure.”

On Friday evening, MET added that while the responsibility remained in the hands of the anti -terrorist police, they were not at the present time treating the incident as suspicious.

The force said: “The investigation of the cause of the fire remains in its early stages.” “After the initial evaluation, we do not deal with this incident as suspicious, although the investigations are still ongoing.”

The closure after a local local branch also raised questions about the elasticity of Heathrow, and whether other parts of the UK national infrastructure are similarly weak.

Willie Walsh, the former bachelor’s president and the current president of the International Air Transport Association, criticized what he said was a “clear failure in planning” that left the critical infrastructure dependent on one power source.

Ruth Kadburi, head of the BBC Transport Committee, told the accident that “raises questions about the flexibility of infrastructure.”

Heathrow’s executive officials rejected these claims. They said that the airport extracted energy from three sub -stations, as well as reserve generators, which provide sufficient emergency energy to keep the corridors open although it is not enough to operate the full airport operations for a long time.

Thomas and Weldby, CEO of Heathrow, said that the airport suffered from a “intense incident.” He added: “This is unprecedented. It has not happened before … We do not close the airport unless we have strong concerns.”

While only one of the three sub -stations that provide energy, Heathrow forced to close thousands of electrical systems. “Restart all these systems in a safe way … takes a long time,” said Weldbi. “We cannot protect ourselves by 100 percent (against every emergency),” he said.

British Airways, which managed more than half of the flights of Heathrow, was one of the most affected flying, and asked the passengers to prepare for long -term disturbance.

“This incident will have a major impact on airlines and clients for several days, with the disruption of expected flights in the coming days,” Dowel said.

The airline had planned to operate more than 670 flights carrying about 107,000 customers on Friday alone, with planning similar numbers during the weekend. More than 200,000 passengers use Heathrow every day.

Send the complete closure of passengers who are scrambling to find other travel ways. Some airlines, including Ryanair and Easyjet, as well as the international train service in Eurostar, put additional seats on their services, while the UK rail operators have reported a rise in train reservations.

Some have turned into private planes. Toby Edwards, a participant in Private Jet Charter Victor, said that the demand for flights “has risen”, including a passenger who paid $ 75,000 to travel across the Atlantic.

With the high demand for rooms, hotels near Heathrow were accused of raising prices by more than four times to 700 pounds per night.

European Airlines stocks closed on Friday after Heathrow, including the International Airlines Group, is the parents of British Airways, which fell nearly 3 percent.

Participated in additional reports from Lucy Fisher, Kiran Smith, Akila Quinho and Jimmy John