After a quarter of a million passengers had their flights cancelled or diverted by the shutdown of London Heathrow, the airport’s chief executive is facing questions from MPs.
Thomas Woldbye is appearing before the Transport Select Committee today (2 April) to explain the sequence of events that led to more than 1,400 flights being diverted or cancelled.
A fire broke out in a transformer within an electrical substation in Hayes, north of Heathrow, late in the evening of Thursday 20 March. In the early hours of Friday morning, 21 March, Heathrow announced it would close until at least midnight – though later that evening some flights were allowed to depart.
As airlines sought to get their schedules back on track, the chaos dragged on for days.
The Independent estimates the total cost to airlines at Heathrow as £100m in lost revenue and passenger care expenses. Last week Luis Gallego, CEO of BA’s parent company, IAG, confirmed his firm alone incurred losses of “tens of millions of pounds”.
The carriers are represented at the hearing by Nigel Wicking, chief executive of the Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee (HAOC).
Heathrow, and the many businesses its activities support, particularly in west London, also lost millions. The wider harm to the UK economy – in terms of inbound tourism and reputational damage – is incalculable.
The emotional impact for the 250,000-plus passengers whose flights were cancelled or diverted was immense – with some people missing important family events including weddings and funerals.
The cross-party committee is chaired by Ruth Cadbury, Labour MP for the west London constituency of Brentford and Isleworth.
Ahead of the hearing, the committee said it would ask:
- How the vital piece of infrastructure appeared to have a single point of failure?
- Whether Heathrow Airport Ltd fully realised the risks of this type of system failure happening?
- Whether this type of incident was deemed so unlikely to happen that investing in additional resilience was deemed unnecessary?
- How Heathrow coordinated with other airports in the UK and Europe to accommodate diverted flights?
- How the company engaged with dozens of airlines that were affected?
- How customers and stakeholders will be compensated?
The Transport Select Committee will also quiz Alice Delahunt, president of UK Electricity Transmission at National Grid, and Eliane Algaard, operations director at Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, which runs the local grid.
