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Boston Globe
22-03-2025
- Boston Globe
What we know about the fire that brought London's Heathrow Airport to a standstill
What happened? A fire at an electrical substation in west London, about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the airport, cut power to Heathrow Airport late on Thursday. Residents reported an explosion and a fireball just before midnight. The London Fire Brigade said a transformer holding 25,000 liters (5,000 gallons) of cooling oil caught fire. It said 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters brought the blaze under control after seven hours, but isolated hotspots were still alight 24 hours after the fire started. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up National Grid, which maintains energy infrastructure in Britain, said the blaze damaged equipment at the substation and cut power to 67,000 properties, including Heathrow. It said power was restored to all of them by Saturday morning. Advertisement The 'significant power outage' initially forced Heathrow officials to announce that the airport would be closed until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, but some flights began to resume on Friday evening. What caused the fire? Officials said there was no suggestion of foul play, but the cause is still under investigation. The fire brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation. Even so, London's Metropolitan Police Service said counterterrorism detectives were leading the investigation because of the fire's impact on critical national infrastructure. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said it was 'an unprecedented event.' '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 told Sky News. How was Heathrow affected? The closure disrupted the travel plans of around 200,000 people who were expected to travel through Heathrow on Friday. Heathrow advised passengers not to travel to the airport and to contact their airlines to rebook flights. Advertisement With all takeoffs and landings canceled, the first impact was on dozens of long-haul flights from North America and Asia that were in the air when the airport was shut down. Some were forced to turn around, while others were diverted to airports around the United Kingdom and Europe. Heathrow-bound aircraft landed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam; Shannon Airport in western Ireland; Glasgow, Scotland; Manchester, England; Charles de Gaulle in Paris; Lyon, France; and Frankfurt, Germany, among others. About 4,000 tons of cargo were also stranded by the closure, according to Anita Mendiratta, an aviation and leadership consultant. How long will the disruptions last? The disruptions are expected to last for days as airlines move stranded aircraft and flight crews back into position and work to accommodate passengers whose flights were canceled. Mendiratta estimated that it would take two to four days to clear all the backlogs. 'This is an extreme situation where the entire aviation ecosystem is impacted,' she said. 'There will be two things that will be happening as a priority No. 1. First is airport operations and understanding, from an electrical system point of view, what has been impacted, if anything,' she said. 'Did anything short out, for instance? What needs to be reactivated? And then how do you literally turn the airport back on again?' How big is Heathrow? Heathrow was Europe's busiest airport last year, with 83.6 million passengers traveling through it. Its closure will have far-reaching impacts because it's a major hub for connecting flights to cities throughout the U.K. and around the world, as well as for travel to London. Does London have other airports? Yes. Five other air hubs in southeastern England identify themselves as London airports, but they are much smaller than Heathrow. London Gatwick, Britain's second-biggest airport, handled 43.2 million passengers last year. It's located in the town of Crawley, 28 miles (45 kilometers) south of London. Advertisement What's the bigger picture? The fire raises concerns about the U.K.'s ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters that damage critical infrastructure such as communications and power networks, analysts said. The incident is particularly worrisome given recent comments by Britain's security services that Russia is conducting a reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe, said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based security think tank. 'The U.K.'s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won't happen again,' he said. 'I mean, if one fire can shut down Heathrow's primary systems ... it tells you something's badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters.' Robin Potter, an expert on resilience at London-based think tank Chatham House, said that successive governments have been slow to respond to repeated recommendations from the National Infrastructure Commission to strengthen the ability of Britain's power, communications, transport and water networks to withstand major shocks. 'We still have yet to see a kind of clear response from the government to those recommendations,' he said. 'And we hope that maybe in the government's upcoming resilience review, which we expect will be published at some point this year, it might seek to address some of those questions.' Heathrow defended its response. Its CEO Thomas Woldbye said 'the same would happen in other airports' faced with a similar fire.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Air Cargo Congestion ‘Will Ripple Outward' After Heathrow Airport Closure
London's Heathrow Airport shut down Friday after a large fire at an electrical substation caused a power outage, disrupting 1,350 flights and putting the state of air cargo passing through the hub in disarray. After 4 p.m. local time, the airport said it was safely able to restart with a reduced operation, with the first flight touching down at Heathrow nearly two hours later. The airport, which is the busiest in Europe, hopes to return to a full schedule on Saturday. More from Sourcing Journal French Shipping Tycoon Pledges $20 Billion to U.S. Logistics Industry Air Cargo Demand Sees Slow Start to 2025 GXO-Wincanton Acquisition in UK Antitrust Body's Crosshairs But for air cargo, it will likely take several days to mobilize planes, cargo carriers and flight crews, as well as clear backlogs. Anita Mendiratta, an aviation and tourism consultant, told the Associated Press roughly 4,000 tons of cargo were stranded by the closure. According to live capacity and air demand data from air cargo software and consulting provider Rotate, 12 percent of European cargo has been directly impacted by the closure. Trans-Atlantic capacity is most affected, with 20 percent of cargo capacity on the lane either going to or from Heathrow. 'The Heathrow closure isn't just another logistics issue; it's a real-time stress test for supply chain resilience. Businesses must demonstrate how quickly they can pivot under pressure,' said Vitaliano Tobruk, a director at Moody's who focuses on supplier risk. 'The E.U.'s major cargo hubs, such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris are absorbing the overflow, but capacity is not unlimited, and congestion will ripple outward. Any companies that rely on supply chains which are too dependent on single transit points would now be facing difficulties.' Heathrow is a critical air freight hub, with 215.6 billion pounds ($278.6 billion) worth of cargo was imported and exported through the airport last year, totaling over 1.5 million metric tons. The airport accounted for 67.7 percent of U.K. air freight imports in 2024, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. 'The second and third largest airports, East Midlands and Stanstead, each accounted for less than 10 percent of imports and so may not be able to take up all the slack while the smaller airports won't have the handling capabilities or onward logistics,' said Chris Rogers, head of supply chain research at S&P Global Market Intelligence. IAG Cargo, which has a hub in Heathrow and said its operations were temporarily disrupted, began accepting new cargo bookings as of Friday afternoon. The company has not commented on how it expects to handle potential backlogs. IAG's Heathrow hub handles over 500,000 metric tons of cargo every year. IAG Cargo transports cargo using the belly capacity of IAG's sister airlines, including British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus and Level. The British International Freight Association (BIFA) noted that this usage of belly capacity in passenger aircraft could pose problems. 'When flights to and from LHR are restored, there will be a considerable influx in demand by passengers for seats to continue their journeys. Potentially this will restrict the capacity to move cargo,' BIFA said in a Friday statement. 'Supply chains work based on a consistent flow of goods and this has been severely interrupted,' BIFA said. 'For exports, the immediate concern will be that airline sheds will fill up rapidly and be unable to accept fresh freight deliveries, which will then affect other parties. For imports, freight will not arrive at or be diverted from its original final destination.' An operational update from Flexport indicated that any export shipments booked from Friday through Sunday are now scheduled for Monday. The digital freight forwarder cited a noticeable increase in requests to export from surrounding airports, including but not limited to Amsterdam, Manchester and Paris. For U.K. imports, Flexport expects significant delays in pickups due to disruptions and emergency service activity at the airport. The company anticipates more imports will be diverted to Birmingham and Manchester. A DHL spokesperson told the New York Times that the logistics company is using ground transport to reroute shipments that were already at Heathrow to other British airports. Heathrow's closure generated some criticism from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). 'How is it that critical infrastructure—of national and global importance—is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative,' said Willie Walsh, IATA's director general. 'If that is the case—as it seems—then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.' Airports worldwide got a similar response last July, when a software glitch from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike caused a global IT outage that grounded thousands of flights worldwide. The incident caused mass delays and cancellations throughout the day and disrupted cargo handling operations with weeklong backlogs.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Yahoo
London's Heathrow Airport closes: What to know after fire causes outage
The Brief London's Heathrow Airport was closed all day on Friday after a nearby fire caused a major power outage. Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports for international travel and more than 1,000 flights were affected. The airport said to "expect significant disruption over the coming days." LONDON - London's Heathrow Airport was closed all day on Friday after a nearby fire caused a major power outage, disrupting flights at one of the world's busiest airports. More than 1,000 flights were affected, and some were forced to divert in the air when the closure was announced. Here's what to know: What we know The fire broke out at a power station about 2 miles from the airport and was brought under control by about 6:30 a.m. local time – seven hours after it erupted, the London Fire Brigade said. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the fire had also knocked out a backup power supply to the airport. In its own statement, Heathrow said that the fire had given it no choice but to close the airport for the day. At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said, and the impact was likely to last several days as passengers try to reschedule their travel. Some 120 flights were in the air when the closure was announced, with some turned around and others diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris or Ireland's Shannon Airport, tracking services showed. What we don't know Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the cause of the fire remains unknown and called the incident "an unprecedented event." Big picture view Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% from the same period last year. January was also the 11th month in a row that it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing trans-Atlantic travel as a key contributor. What they're saying "We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens," the airport said. Anita Mendiratta, an aviation consultant, told the Associated Press that the impact of the closure would be felt over two to four days as airlines, cargo carriers, and crews are re-mobilized and passengers rebooked. "As soon as the airport opens up at midnight tonight, it's not only about resuming with tomorrow's flights, it's the backlog and the implications that have taken place," Mendiratta said. "Crew and aircraft, many are not where they're supposed to be right now. So the recalculation of this is going to be intense." Dig deeper The London Fire Brigade sent 10 fire engines and around 70 firefighters to control the blaze after flames soared into the sky when a transformer at the electrical substation in west London caught fire just before 11:30 p.m. local time. About 150 people were evacuated from their homes near the power station. As the airport closed, National Rail also canceled all trains to and from the airport. The Source Information used in this story comes from published information shared by the London Fire Brigade on March 21, 2025. It was reported from Cincinnati, and the Associated Press contributed.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Heathrow closure could cost millions, disrupt flights for days
Huge travel disruption at London's Heathrow airport caused by a power cut Friday could take several days to remedy and cost millions of pounds, experts estimated. Europe's busiest air hub was brought to a standstill after a fire at an electricity substation cut power to Heathrow, raising questions over the resilience of its infrastructure. - Back to normal when? - The reopening of the airport will not mean the immediate return of regular flights, as a backlog of planes return to correct locations and passengers are re-routed from cancelled flights. "It's extremely complicated... the disruptions will last two to four days," Anita Mendiratta, an aviation advisor to the United Nations tourism agency, told AFP. "It's not only airport operations, but passengers, crew, cargo, aircraft all of that are very much displaced if they've had to be relocated," she added. According to aviation consultant Philip Butterworth-Hayes, the disruption could last longer, even "a good seven or eight days" for business as usual to resume. - Is Heathrow resilient? - UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband promised that the government would do all it could to quickly restore power to Heathrow, as questions were raised about the airport's "resilience". "There's obviously been a catastrophic fire at this substation, an unprecedented event... it appears to have knocked out a backup generator as well as the substation itself," Miliband told BBC radio. "Obviously we will have to look harder at the causes and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major institutions like Heathrow." Butterworth-Hayes told AFP that "there should have been other generators that kicked in, so why they haven't is one of the big questions". - How much will it cost? - Several experts estimated that the cost of the incident for the airlines and the airport, which handles some 230,000 passengers a day, would total tens of millions of pounds. Butterworth-Hayes estimated that the costs could stretch to "certainly more than 50 million pounds ($65 million)". "It's a massive impact in lost revenues and disruption costs, primarily for the airlines (because of) all the follow-on costs involved in putting people in hotels, refunds, re-bookings etc," said independent airline analyst John Strickland. Shares in British Airways parent IAG were down 1.6 percent in London afternoon trading, while Air France-KLM also retreated in Paris. The UK's second busiest airport, Gatwick, said it would accept some flights from Heathrow. Others were diverted to European airports including Shannon in southwestern Ireland, Frankfurt, and Paris Charles de Gaulle. - How rare are closures? - Major airport closures are not uncommon worldwide, but occur mainly owing to weather events, such as storms or hurricanes, or following accidents or conflicts. At the beginning of October, several international airports in Florida ceased operations because of Hurricane Milton. South Korea's Muan International Airport, which is much smaller than Heathrow, was closed for more than 20 days between December and January following the deadly crash of Jeju Air Boeing 737-800. In April 2010, the huge amount of ash blasted into the atmosphere by Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano led several European countries -- including Britain, Norway and Denmark -- to close their airspace. Following the 2001 September 11 attacks in New York, the United States closed its airspace to civilian traffic for two days. mhc-ode/ajb/bcp/ach
Euronews
20-02-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Airbus warns of delivery uncertainties but announces lift in revenue
Airbus announced strong order intake across all divisions in its annual earnings update on Thursday, further outperforming troubled competitor Boeing. Revenues totalled €69.23 billion in 2024, up from €65.45bn in the previous year. Adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) came in at €5.35bn, an 8% drop from 2023's total of €5.84bn. The figure was slightly below estimates due to charges in Airbus' space division, which is undergoing a restructuring process. "FY2024 results are a testament to Airbus' leadership maintaining an acute focus on the fundamentals," said Anita Mendiratta, aviation and tourism expert. "The strong order intake across all divisions signifies sustained market confidence – critical in 2024 when, for the first full year since the end of the global pandemic, trade was able to not only recover but grow to a rate of surge," she added. The firm delivered 766 commercial aircraft in 2024 after a concerted end-of-year effort, compared to 735 in 2023. Gross commercial aircraft orders for 2024 totalled 878, with net orders of 826 after cancellations. Targets for the coming year Looking to the year ahead, Airbus offered a modest delivery target of 820 commercial aircraft, down from a peak of 863 seen in 2019. This number "seems slightly conservative but is understandable given ongoing supply chain issues", said Quilter Cheviot equity analyst Matt Dorset. "The company will want to avoid another cut to guidance as occurred in 2024," he added. In June last year, Airbus lowered its targets for earnings and aircraft deliveries, denting investor confidence. The firm said the reassessment was linked to "persistent specific supply chain issues mainly in engines, aerostructures and cabin equipment", as well as additional costs in its space systems division. A little less than a year on, Airbus is still battling with the same hurdles, which can be traced back to the Covid-19 pandemic. "Specific supply chain challenges, notably with Spirit AeroSystems, are currently putting pressure on the ramp up of the A350 and the A220," the firm noted on Thursday. Airbus is expecting adjusted EBIT to be around €7bn in 2025, while free cash flow before customer financing is forecast at roughly €4.5bn. The forecasts don't, however, take into account the effects of tariffs that could be imposed by US President Donald Trump. Airbus flies ahead of Boeing Airbus increased its dividend for 2024 to €2, up from €1.80 a year earlier, and has proposed an additional special dividend of €1 per share. The proposed payment date is 24 April 2025. Airbus' robust financial situation stands in contrast to the fortunes of its competitor Boeing. Along with a series of safety crises, the US planemaker contended with strikes last year and issues with its defence programmes. The aerospace giant lost $11.8bn (€11.3bn) across the whole of 2024, its worst result since 2020.
