A major fire in a nearby electrical substation shut down Heathrow for all of Friday, March 21. While its comms about the crisis aren’t getting negative attention, the London airport finds itself having to defend both its decision to close and not having an adequate backup plan. Those comms requirements aren’t going away any time soon.

The messaging about the shutdown wasn’t complicated — basically, “we’re closed!” The airport put out what appears to be an initial statement on X in the early hours of March 21, according to a CNN timeline. “Due to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport, Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage,” it said. “To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23h59 on 21 March.”

The facility appears to have kept people updated on social media about what was happening. The main issue was operational: Why did a substation fire (the cause of which is still unknown) shut down Europe’s busiest airport?

Power Sources

In an interview published in the Financial Times on Sunday, the CEO of National Grid, which runs the substation, said Heathrow had access to two other substations and had plenty of power to maintain operations. But Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye told the BBC that its backup plan doesn’t anticipate such a massive failure and that it would have taken too long to switch to the other power sources. He was careful to point out that it wasn’t the airport that created the problem.

“As the National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, noted, he has never seen a transformer failure like this in his 30 years in the industry,” the airport said in a statement Sunday. “His view confirms that this was an unprecedented incident and that it would not have been possible for Heathrow to operate uninterrupted.”

The airport has ordered a probe of its operational response to the crisis. It will have to continue to defend its decision, which won’t be easy, especially given the finger-pointing. This is a situation in which all sides would be well advised to pound the facts in self-defense.

Canceled Flights

Obviously, the closure caused a major crisis for the airlines — more than 1,300 flights had been scheduled to take off from or land at Heathrow that day. They had to be canceled or redirected. News reports were rife with tales of world travelers potentially missing weddings and other important gatherings. The shutdown will cost the airline industry many millions of dollars.

The industry’s trade group, the International Air Transport Association, put out a brutal statement on Friday. “This is yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travelers and airlines,” it said. “And that begs some serious questions. Firstly, how is it that critical infrastructure — of national and global importance — is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative. If that is the case — as it seems — then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”

Photo Credit: Tom Eversley/Shutterstock

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