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BBC News
6 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Heathrow boss 'frustrated' for being asleep during fire
Heathrow's boss has said it was "frustrating" he slept through numerous emergency phone calls following a fire in March that led the airport's closure and the cancellation of 1,300 his first media interview since a blaze at a nearby electrical substation disrupted flights for 270,000 passengers, Thomas Woldbye said it wasn't normally the way he acted."It's not how I normally operate but on an operational level all the right things happened," he told the BBC's Today Woldbye admitted that the power outage would cost "millions" but declined to specify how much. Results from Heathrow revealed that pre-tax profit fell by 37.2% to £203m in the first six months of 2025. A review into the incident by former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly found that Mr Woldbye missed two emergency notifications and "several" phone calls on the night of the fire and the subsequent power outage because his mobile phone had gone into "silent mode".In the early hours of 21 March, Heathrow took the decision to stop operations at the airport. Mr Woldbye became aware of what had happened at around 6:45am. He told the BBC he was satisfied with the crisis management procedures that were in place and went into action while he was sleeping."Of course, an organisation like ours has to be able to manage whether the captain's on the bridge or not and in this particular case we took the right decisions," he said. An investigation into how the fire started at an electrical substation which supplied power to Heathrow discovered that it was the result of a known fault at the site. National Grid, which owns the substation, had been aware of a problem since 2018 but failed to fix the results of the investigation were published, Heathrow said it was considering legal action against National Grid.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Heathrow in talks to land successor to chairman Lord Deighton
Heathrow Airport is sounding out candidates to take over from Lord Deighton, its long-serving chairman. Sky News has learnt that Britain's biggest aviation hub is working with the headhunter Russell Reynolds Associates to recruit a successor to Lord Deighton, who took up the post in 2016. The search has emerged days after Heathrow warned of a more challenging transatlantic travel market in a sign of the ongoing fallout from President Trump's trade war. Money latest: Under Lord Deighton, the former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs executive, Heathrow has overhauled its ownership structure. More recently, it has been dealing with the fallout from the electrical fire close to the airport which saw Heathrow shut for nearly an entire day in March. The company said it would implement the recommendations of a review conducted by former transport secretary Ruth Kelly. Succession planning for the airport's chairmanship was disclosed in its annual report but has not been reported. In it, Lord Deighton wrote: "In light of the recent changes to the HAHL [Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited] board resulting from the completion of the share sale on 12 December 2024, and the relatively new appointments of the chief executive and chief financial officer, the nominations committee, comprising a number of non-executive shareholder directors, has asked me to extend my appointment for a limited period to help ensure a smooth transition whilst new non-executive shareholder directors become familiar with the business and a new chair is appointed. "I have therefore agreed to extend my role as Chair for a limited period to ensure continuity and stability on the HAHL Board during this period of transition." An announcement about the chosen candidate is expected later this year.
Sky News
01-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Heathrow in talks to land successor to chairman Lord Deighton
Heathrow Airport is sounding out candidates to take over from Lord Deighton, its long-serving chairman. Sky News has learnt that Britain's biggest aviation hub is working with the headhunter Russell Reynolds Associates to recruit a successor to Lord Deighton, who took up the post in 2016. The search has emerged days after Heathrow warned of a more challenging transatlantic travel market in a sign of the ongoing fallout from President Trump's trade war. Under Lord Deighton, the former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs executive, Heathrow has overhauled its ownership structure. More recently, it has been dealing with the fallout from the electrical fire close to the airport which saw Heathrow shut for nearly an entire day in March. The company said it would implement the recommendations of a review conducted by former transport secretary Ruth Kelly. Succession planning for the airport's chairmanship was disclosed in its annual report but has not been reported. In it, Lord Deighton wrote: "In light of the recent changes to the HAHL [Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited] board resulting from the completion of the share sale on 12 December 2024, and the relatively new appointments of the chief executive and chief financial officer, the nominations committee, comprising a number of non-executive shareholder directors, has asked me to extend my appointment for a limited period to help ensure a smooth transition whilst new non-executive shareholder directors become familiar with the business and a new chair is appointed. "I have therefore agreed to extend my role as Chair for a limited period to ensure continuity and stability on the HAHL Board during this period of transition."
Leader Live
09-06-2025
- Business
- Leader Live
Wrexham case as extent of unclaimed Child Trust Funds revealed
Almost half (46.1%) of that belongs to those from low-income backgrounds who may need the money most. As of the end of May, nearly 35,000 young people across the country are unaware of their accounts and don't have access to what is rightfully theirs, according to figures from The Share Foundation. The data comes as child poverty in Wales is set to reach its highest rate in 30 years, with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warning that more than 34% of children could be living in low-income families by the end of the decade. The Share Foundation, a registered charity that runs Junior ISA and Child Trust Fund schemes for young people in care throughout the UK on behalf of the Department for Education, is calling for the government to introduce automatic release of HMRC-allocated Child Trust Fund money when recipients turn 21. Under the proposal, countersigned by former Minister Ruth Kelly and parliamentarians from both Houses, account providers would be required to close and pay out proceeds via Government National Insurance channels for all unclaimed HMRC-allocated matured Child Trust Funds. 'Child poverty is becoming one of the big issues of our time,' commented Gavin Oldham OBE, Chair of Trustees at The Share Foundation. 'We need to break the cycle of deprivation which is why, over the past 12 years, we have been committed to establishing starter capital accounts for young people in care and helping young people from low-income backgrounds access Child Trust Funds they never even knew existed. "These initiatives are delivering positive outcomes exactly when families need them most.' To date, The Share Foundation has matched more than 85,000 young people with their Child Trust Funds, recovering over £165 million for young adult account owners through its free search facility developed with HMRC and Child Trust Fund account providers. The charity's mission is to encourage and facilitate inter-generational rebalancing by providing young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with both material resources and life skills knowledge to achieve their potential in adult life. TOP STORIES TODAY One of those who has discovered that he was entitled to the funds was Corey Polley from Wrexham. The 20-year-old has been self-employed for the last three years, doing timber framing. About two years ago, he found out about the Child Trust Fund through a family member. He used the Share Foundation website to see where his fund was held, a process which took 'about a week'. He claimed around £800 which has paid for his tools which was really important for him in his job, as otherwise it would have been harder for him to progress his career with the tools he had before. He has since told his friends who have also claimed their money. Corey said: 'Finding out about this money has been a massive help. I had no idea it even existed and it came at the perfect time when I was starting out in my career. "So many young people like me still don't know the child trust fund exists, so The Share Foundation's proposal for young people to get their fund automatically paid when they turn 21 makes a lot of sense. It could give other young people the same head start I got.'
Telegraph
30-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The sleeping Heathrow boss proves we're a nation led by donkeys
It was one of the more astonishing admissions of the week: 'Sorry lads, my phone was on silent.' Or, as the Kelly Review, published on Wednesday, put it: ' Mr Woldbye expressed to us his deep regret at not being contactable during the night of the incident.' The apology nestles in a 75-page report authored by Ruth Kelly, the former transport secretary, who examined the circumstances relating to the closure of Heathrow Airport on March 21. It's an impressively speedy job, with most inquiries of this nature usually waiting for the protagonists to die – or, at best, until their memories have long faded and the events have been massaged into a Netflix documentary – to be concluded. Yet here is a report published while the senior folk of one of the largest and busiest airports in Europe are still firmly in post. And clinging on for dear life – especially the chief executive, Thomas Woldbye. Indeed he has been vexed at the idea that he acted in any way other than exemplary over the 18-hour shutdown of Heathrow that resulted in the cancellation of 1,300 flights and affected some 270,000 passengers. The day after the shutdown, the Danish businessman even told Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that, in relation to the actions and decisions of Heathrow and related parties, he was 'proud of the entire ecosystem'. Pride being the most plausible emotion for him to express because, when the decision was taken to press the Heathrow off-button, Woldbye was asleep. Which for a Dane strikes me as a peculiarly British reaction, albeit with firm roots in the comedy of Captain Mainwaring of Dad's Army or Blackadder 's General Melchett. Our hero, Woldbye, as you can read on page 36 of the report (section 14, subsection 3), 'first became aware of the incident at approximately 06:45 on 21 March, and received a debrief from Mr Echave [Heathrow's chief operating officer]'. 'Fine work, man,' he might have said. 'Now, what's going on?' And, famously, it was not for want of trying to get hold of Woldbye during the night. In fact, what is known in the trade as the most 'critical event communication platform that provides information and sends alerts through all available communication channels', an F24 alarm was issued at 00.21. This is the technical equivalent of a cold bucket of water being thrown in your face, a gong being struck by your ear, a jumping up and down on Daddy at dawn. There was another F24 sent at 01.52, this one activating Gold (harder slaps around the chops, cries of 'wake up, you idiot!') and Echave, also we learn, 'attempted to call Mr Woldbye several times during the early hours'. Except Woldbye's mobile, albeit on his bedside table, was on silent. Or, as the report states, 'the phone had gone into a silent mode, without him being aware it had done so'. That's right, the man in charge of Heathrow – an airport that uses the most sophisticated technology available to run and protect a place with planes departing and landing every 45 seconds – has a phone that, completely of its own accord, jumps into 'do not disturb' mode. Perhaps the man whose most recent annual take-home pay was £3.2 million needs a second phone. Or how about an old-school landline with a trilling bell on it? We Brits are, quite clearly, lions led by donkeys. Incompetence seems key to the skill set in running either a large company or indeed government. There are, for example, the civil servants of the Department for Business and Trade who, in the face of colossal public pressure and moral finger-wagging, continue to resist fully compensating the likes of Sir Alan Bates for the Horizon IT system scandal. Last weekend he revealed that he had been offered a 'take it or leave it' offer of 49.2 per cent of his original claim. The compensation scheme, Sir Alan said, had become 'quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses'. Or, consider the major water companies presiding over the effluent that pollutes our rivers. Earlier this month, Chris Weston, the CEO of Thames Water – Britain's biggest water company; a firm with massive debts, outdated infrastructure and more leaks and spills than the Titanic – admitted that senior managers had been in line for substantial bonuses courtesy of a privately financed £3 billion rescue-plan loan. Following pressure from Environment Secretary Steve Reed, Weston's spokesperson then announced that payments had been 'paused'. Yet, as The Guardian reported, Thames Water 'declined to answer questions about whether any of the retention package has already been paid'. High Court judge Mr Justice Leech, in relation to an £800 million cost to be spent on interest and advisers for the debt deal, said: 'Customers and residents who are struggling with their bills will be horrified at these costs and mystified how the Thames Water Group has been able to fund them or why it has agreed to do so.' Ponder, too, on those who run Royal Mail, increasing prices while presiding over terminal decline of their services, and the pen-pushing ninnies of our councils conjuring up safety costs that are wrecking traditional country street fairs and festivals. Indeed, just look to the politicians who run our country. We have a Chancellor in Rachel Reeves who claims to support hospitality while actually savaging it with increases in National Insurance Contributions for employers, and a Secretary of State for Education gleefully manifesting over a VAT policy that is closing down private schools.
