London – London Heathrow Airport announced on Saturday morning that it is “open and completely operational” and that flights have resumed after a fire in an electrical substation knocked out the energy to the most busy center in Europe.
“Flights have resumed in Heathrow, and we are open and completely operational,” Heathrow airport said in X. “The teams throughout the airport continue to do everything possible to support passengers affected by yesterday’s interruption in a substation of energy out of the air.”
A Heathrow spokesman said that hundreds of additional colleagues are available in their terminals on Saturday and that the airport has added Saturday flights to facilitate 10,000 additional passengers traveling through the airport.
“Energy supplies have been restored to all customers connected to our North Hyde substation, including Heathrow, allowing operations to resume at the airport. We are now implementing measures to help even more improve the resilience levels of our network,” said a statement from the United Kingdom’s national grid in relation to the fire in the North Hyde substation that caused the closure of Heathrow on Friday.
“We deeply regret the interruption caused and continue working closely with the government, Heathrow and the Police to understand the cause of the incident,” the statement continued.
A passenger plane makes its landing approach to Heathrow International Airport, one day after a fire in a nearby electric substation annihilated energy at the airport, near London, Great Britain, on March 22, 2025.
Carlos Jasso/Reuters
An analysis said it was expected that up to 290,000 passengers will be affected by the closure on Friday, according to Cirium, an aviation analysis company. There were 669 flights scheduled to leave for Heathrow on Friday, with 145,836 seats, according to Cirium. The fire could also affect another 270,000 passengers on Saturday, Cirium said.
The cause of the fire is not yet known and currently under investigation, but the authorities have confirmed that they are not treating the fire as a suspect.
“After the initial evaluation, we are not dealing with this incident as a suspect, although the investigations are still ongoing,” said a statement from the London Metropolitan Police. Due to the location of the substation “and the impact that this incident has had on the critical national infrastructure”, the command against the terrorism of the MET was leading the investigation, authorities said.
Morgan Winsor and Mike Trew contributed to the report.
