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Flights have resumed to and from Heathrow airport, after National Grid found “an interim solution”. Some passengers travelled for over 32 hours to reach the airport, after spending time “circling” in the air.
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Overnight restrictions, which limit the number of night-time take-offs and landings, have been temporarily lifted to ease congestion.
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The airport is expected to be “back in full operation” on Saturday and passengers are being asked to come to the airport as they normally would.
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There are “no suggestions of foul play” in the cause of the fire, according to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander. She added that the situation was “unprecedented”.
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Shares in airlines including British Airways, Lufthansa and Ryanair have fallen
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It is estimated the closure will cost the aviation sector about £20m a day.
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Disruption is expected to continue over the coming days, the British Airways chair Sean Doyle said, adding that more than 670 flights carrying around 103,000 passengers were affected by the fire.
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Backup systems at the airport “worked the way they should”, Heathrow Airport chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, said as he admitted that the power supply of Heathrow is “a bit of a weak point”.
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Around 200,000 passengers have been affected by the closure, with over 1,300 flights disrupted.
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The Metropolitan police has now confirmed that the counter-terrorism command is leading inquiries as to the source of fire at the substation in Hayes, but stressed there is “currently no indication of foul play.”
Thanks for following this blog with me, Donna Ferguson. For more on this story, read our report ‘Questions to answer’: Downing Street vows to learn from Heathrow closure.
Gwyn Topham, Rowena Mason, Vikram Dodd and Jillian Ambrose
Downing Street has said there are “questions to answer” after a fire at an electrical substation closed down London Heathrow airport, stopping around 1,300 planes and disrupting the journeys of hundreds of thousands of global passengers.
Counter-terror police are leading the investigation into the “unprecedented” incident that left Britain’s biggest airport unable to function as engineers tried to restore power, but said there was “no indication of foul play”.
Two people familiar with the investigation said officials do not believe the fire was the result of any criminal activity or a hostile state and was more likely to be accidental.
Heathrow announced it would partially reopen on Friday evening, but airlines warned that the closure could continue to have a “huge impact” on passengers in the coming days. The airport said it hoped to run a full operation on Saturday.
Ministers acknowledged the “immense distress and disruption” caused to passengers, vowing “we will learn the lessons”.
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London fire brigade has said that 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters responded to a fire at the substation that was reported at 11:23pm on Thursday.
The blaze has been contained but firefighters will remain at the scene throughout the day today, the fire brigade said.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the “catastrophic” fire appeared to have knocked out a backup generator as well as the electrical substation that supplies power to Heathrow Airport.
“It’s obviously an unprecedented event,” Miliband told Sky News. “Obviously, with any incident like this we will want to understand why it happened and what if any lessons it has for our infrastructure,” he added.
London Heathrow tomorrow.
“We ask passengers to continue to check with their airline regarding their flight status before coming to the airport. All other routes from City of Derry Airport to Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool continue to operate as usual.”
London, the airline has said.
A Qantas spokesperson said: “Our Singapore-London and Perth-London services were diverted to Paris today, with buses arranged to take customers on to London.
“Our teams are working hard to support impacted customers and we thank them for their patience.”
The first plane has landed at London’s Heathrow Airport since the fire, Associated Press reports.
The British Airways jet touched down on Friday about 18 hours after the airport was closed due to a massive power outage.
The chief executive of Heathrow said the airport expects to return to “100% operation” on Saturday after an “unprecedented” day of disruption.
Thomas Woldbye told the press: “We expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day.
“[Passengers] should come to the airport as they normally would. There’s no reason to come earlier.”
Of the airport’s closure on Friday after an outage caused by a fire, Mr Woldbye said: “This is unprecedented.
“It’s never happened before and that’s why I’m saying it has been a major incident.”
Source: theguardian.com
