26th Mar 2025 11:13
(Alliance News) - More than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted by Heathrow airport's closure last week, new figures show.
Some 234,000 passengers booked to fly to or from Heathrow on Friday, March 21 had their flight cancelled, diverted or delayed when the airport suffered a power outage because of a fire at a nearby electricity substation, aviation industry statistics seen by the PA news agency show.
No flights were permitted at the airport on that day until around 1800 GMT.
A further 36,500 people hoping to travel the following day were affected when 74 flights, 6.1% of the total scheduled, were cancelled.
The airport said it was "open and fully operational" on that day but many aircraft and flight crews were out of position.
The Metropolitan Police said on Tuesday the blaze at the substation in Hayes, west London is no longer being treated as a "potentially criminal matter", adding that officers found "no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature".
National Grid, London Fire Brigade and Southern Electricity Network will continue to investigate the cause of the fire.
In an interview with the BBC last week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was "deeply concerned" about the incident, and there are "questions that need to be answered".
In the aftermath of the airport's closure, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband ordered the National Energy System Operator to investigate what happened and provide its initial findings within six weeks.
Heathrow's chief executive Thomas Woldbye will be grilled by MPs on Wednesday April 2 at a one-off session investigating the shutdown.
Questions to Woldbye are likely to cover topics such as whether the airport needed to close, whether it could have been reopened sooner, back-up power supplies, and why he reportedly went back to bed after the power outage began.
Heathrow is Europe's busiest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
By Neil Lancefield, PA Transport Correspondent
Press Association: News
source: PA
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