LONDON — Britain’s Heathrow Airport was closed all day Friday, March 21, 2025, after a fire at a nearby electrical substation knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest travel hub.
At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said, and the impact was likely to last several days as passengers try to reschedule their travel.
Some 120 flights were in the air when the closure was announced, with some turned around and others diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris or Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.
The fire at a power station about two miles from the airport was brought under control about seven hours after it erupted in a ball of flames, the London Fire Brigade said.
“We don’t know the cause of this fire. It’s obviously an unprecedented event,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said.
Miliband said the fire had also knocked out a backup generator supply to the airport. Heathrow said in a statement that the fire had given it no choice but to close the airport for the day.
“We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” the airport said.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5 percent from the same period last year. January also was the 11th month in a row that it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing trans-Atlantic travel as a key contributor.
United Airlines said seven of its flights returned to their origin or diverted to other airports and its flights Friday to Heathrow were canceled.
At least two flights from Taiwan to London were affected, the island’s Central News Agency reported. A China Airlines flight that left in the morning turned around and was headed back to Taiwan. An EVA Air flight stopped in Bangkok, a planned stopover, while the airline assessed the situation in London.
Singapore Airlines said on the X social media platform that its overnight flight to London was diverted to Frankfurt.
The FlightAware website showed more cancellations, including two from JFK in New York, a Delta Airlines flight and an American Airlines flight. / AP