Flights at Britain's Heathrow began resuming late on Friday after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe's busiest airport for the day, stranding thousands of passengers and causing travel turmoil worldwide.
Heathrow said its teams had worked tirelessly to reopen the world's fifth-busiest airport after it was forced to close entirely after a huge fire engulfed a substation near the airport on Thursday night, with travellers told to stay away.
The airport had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in Britain and across Europe, while many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure.
Heathrow said there would be a limited number of flights on Friday, mostly focused on relocating aircraft and bringing planes into London. "Tomorrow morning, we expect to be back in full operation, to 100% operation as a normal day," said Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye.
"What I'd like to do is to apologise to the many people who have had their travel affected ...we are very sorry about all the inconvenience."
Police said that while there was no indication of foul play, counter-terrorism officers were leading the inquiries, given their capabilities and the critical nature of the infrastructure. The closure not only caused misery for travellers but provoked anger from airlines who questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail.
The industry is now facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds, and a likely fight over who should pay. "You would think they would have significant back-up power," one top executive from a European airline told Reuters.
Heathrow's Woldbye said back-up systems and procedures had worked as they should. "This (power supply) is a bit of a weak point," he told reporters outside the airport.
"But of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them." Asked who would pay, he said there were "procedures in place", adding "we don't have liabilities in place for incidents like this".
British transport minister Heidi Alexander said the incident had been out of Heathrow's control. "They have stood up their resilience plans very swiftly and have been working in close collaboration with all the emergency responders and the airline operators," she told reporters.
"There are no suggestions at the moment of foul play, but you will appreciate the investigation keeps an open mind."
Diverted
Airlines including jetBlue, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Delta Air Lines, Qantas, United Airlines, IAG-owned British Airways and Virgin were diverted or returned to their origin airports in the middle of the night, according to data from flight analytics firm Cirium.
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